social media

About Me, social media

Best of 2016

December 31, 2016

Well, if not best then at least most popular. Shall we list from 10 to 1? Okie dokie.

10. Conversation with an exorcist {part 1}

9. What can we do? Practical steps for living in an age of terror

8. Porn-proofing our kids: practical steps {2 in a series}

7. Well, that escalated quickly

6. Porn-proofing our kids: emotional investment {1 in a series}

5. The power of a single life

4. This vocation is shaped like a cross

3. Conform or be destroyed (but be not afraid)

2. The innocence of children

and, drumroll please, the one that found me chatting with radio hosts and answering emails from journalists and became my most-viewed post not just of 2016 but vvvvv close to all time:

1. Women, know your limits!

When I think back over 2016 and actually just reading through some of these old posts, I can see how dramatically I’ve changed and how much I’ve mellowed, if that is possible. (INTJ 4ever.) But I do seem to have mellowed a bit, just the same. The bark is softer, the bite is gentler. I still write about hard stuff and hold unpopular opinions, but it’s all been tempered a bit in the forge that was 2016.

I wouldn’t have said 6 months ago that this was the best year of my life, what with being the throes of shingles and watching another contract on another house fall through, but now, looking back on the journey we’ve completed as a family and that I’ve been forging as an individual, I’m a little bit in awe of what God has done. Which is helpful to call to mind when I’m temper tantruming at Him for what still needs to be done. Note to self.

This year has stretched me further and plunged me deeper into the abyss of neediness of Him than any other. From health struggles to new ways of eating and caring for my body to healing of a more spiritual nature, 2016 really had it all. And while I wouldn’t do it again for a million bucks, I’m so glad it happened. It really was a Year of Mercy. But not the fluffy kind, you know?

On a more directly blog related note, I have found that by pulling back from social media I’ve regained a better equilibrium for what my voice sounds like, and what my mission is for this space. There was a very real possibility of walking away from it all earlier in the year. And I’m glad to have found a new normal, a better balance which, for the time being, includes zero social media platforms aside form the occasional Facebook Live video and auto posting links to new blogs to FB and Twitter. Do I feel like a little bit of a hypocrite creating content and distributing it across social networks but not partaking of said networks? Well, I did at first. But after a bit of soul searching and pondering, I’ve come to believe that we all have the right and even the responsibility to decide how we’ll spend the time we’ve been given. And I was spending a vast amount of that time behaving, at least on the internet, the same way I’d behaved in grad school or as a young single working girl: supremely connected and almost always available.

When I looked around at my dirty floors and 4 beautiful and demanding children and the life we were trying to build, it made very little sense to be spending literal hours a day answering messages and emails, checking notifications, and the like. I’m not exaggerating, either. It was very literally hours, some days, when it all added up.

So I’m here still, trying to figure out what the future holds for the blog. And after what my sister and I joked (she was a new college grad desperately job hunting and flopping on my couch and I was dying of home-buying related ailments and, well, shingles) that this year was the Year of “No,” it has felt right to say a whole lot of no’s lately. But I can sense that there may be a new season just up ahead, on the horizon. This morning I went for a run, my first in maybe 5 months. As I pounded the pavement to a vintage Tom Petty album, I felt a real sense of possibility that maybe soon, maybe even this week or this month, we would be transitioning out of a season of survival mode and into something more. More what? I’m not sure. I just have the sense that this grueling, necessary and purifying chapter is almost finished. And maybe the next season will be harder. It could be. But maybe it could be a golden, honey-hued time of simple meals and meaningful connection. Of good, structured days and short runs and more laughing and less crying and an intensity that finds its focus not in worry or overwhelm but in prayer and in service.

I’m ready for a year like that.

I pray that your own New Year’s celebrations are joyful, chill, and marked by a distinct lack of projectile vomiting. As for me and my house, we’d like a bit of a Christmas do-over, and maybe we’ll shoot for just that.

Peace be with us, every one.

(And also, if you could spare a moment of prayer for a giant of a man, Fr. Mike Scanlan, who is probably going home to Jesus today. Pray for his endurance in this final mile, and for a glorious reception in Heaven. My life, like so many others of my generation, was absolutely transformed by his yes to the Lord. Read about him here.)

About Me, Catholic Spirituality, mindfulness, social media

Connected to what’s real

November 30, 2016

Lately when I sit down to write, it feels a little stilted. Things feel a little off. I don’t feel quite up to the task of writing instructive, catechetical stuff right now. When I get questions about why the Catholic Church teaches this or that, or what to say when confronted with such and such pressing social issue, I sigh and close my inbox and want to answer that person in person, looking into their eyes over a cup of coffee, having a conversation.

As I’ve pulled back more and more from social media, my tolerance for human interaction has increased in a manner that this sleep-deprived introvert finds a little bit shocking. Even scandalous. Like, what have I been doing with my time these past years, that I would hide away from my neighbors and let phone calls go straight to voicemail, so anxious was I for solitude.

But it wasn’t actual solitude I was usually practicing, hunkered down in the trenches of early motherhood and round the clock feedings.

I was always connected.

Always one more click, one more scroll, one more follow. I was exhausting my entire capacity for social interaction in a way that is – if I’m being honest – social in name only. And in the practice of consuming social media, I think it was consuming me.

Do you know the feeling I’m talking about? That dazed, eyes-burning startle of guilt and confusion over the clock now reading 10:39 pm, and you were just going to log on “for a quick second.” And that was around 9:30. You don’t feel any more satisfied or any more connected, necessarily, but you might be mentally cursing your fate of now fewer than 8 hours of sleep because of one happy little rooster who will not be put off past 6 am.

I’ve missed some life events and birthdays and milestones this past couple months of ignorant bliss, but nothing so big that it couldn’t be rectified with a phone call or a personal inquiry. And the things that I truly dropped the ball on? What kind of a friendship requires digital notifications to maintain? Busy as we all are, that’s not a real relationship, in all honesty.

I’m not condemning social media or the use of it. I’m just processing and exploring what it means to me and what being unconnected now means for me. About how my brain is quieter. And in that sometimes uncomfortable quiet, there is room.

That’s the biggest difference. The busy, over-connected and always-scanning brain (mine, anyway) was noisy. Statuses I’d read, articles I’d consumed, videos I’d watched, updates I’d taken notice of. Images I’d seen and liked and assimilated into my interior landscape.

What we put into our bodies matters. I can hardly hope to eat burritos 3 times a day and avoid looking like one, however much I desire (and truly, I pine) for that not to be the case. What we put into our souls, the same. “Whatever is true, whatever is good, whatever is beautiful.” Should it come as a surprise that what we take in through our eyes matter, also? The words we read, the images we consume, the entertainment that captivates so much of the day and so much of my internal space.

I guess I’d been keeping pace with technology and consuming a moderate amount, by most standards, gradually accumulating accounts on the newer platforms and using the apps and basically just the norms of the culture around me. Without stopping to consider, truly, is this good for me? Is this healthy? Is this sustainable?

But everybody is on Facebook. Everybody shares their lives on social media. Jenny, you are a blogger.

Yes. This is a confusing and not entirely clean-cut knot I find myself trying to untangle.

But is the ambient culture an effective litmus for what is good for the human person? Is it a good standard against which my happiness can be measured?

I don’t think it is.

I see more and more time being spent online (she types on her blog) and increasing social and emotional estrangement in real life. I see sadness and unrest and such a hunger for real connection and so much loneliness. We live with such a poverty of love. And social media has the potential to alleviate that poverty in the right doses and used in the right ways. But overall, when I asses my own usage of it and my endless appetite for more!clicks! I have to be honest with myself and admit that 90% of the time, I am not being enriched by it. And not just in a “you could be using your time better” sense, but on a deeper level.

I am not enriched by the hours I spend distracted and separate from my actual life.

I would venture to say that you are not, either.

And oh, I say this with so much compassion, so much trepidation, so much awareness that for many, many people, community is few and far between, whether by limitations that are geographic or stage-in-life or shared belief in nature. I remember myself in that little 2 bedroom apartment in Rome, looking out the balcony window at the majestic rise of the Dome of St. Peter’s with hot, homesick tears running down my cheeks while my small babies napped in the room next door. That was a season of Skype and this computer was like a portal to another world, one where I had friends who loved me and family who knew me.

But I did miss out on a lot that year, too. If I could go back and do it again, in hindsight, I wonder, would I have made the trek over to the Borgo to see my friend Susana more frequently? Would I have braved the trundling city bus – stroller and all – to go see JoAnn at the U of M campus across town? Maybe I would have hosted that ill-fated American moms meet up at my apartment more than one single time. Perhaps I’d have taken the trek down river to Trastevere and spent more mornings with Kristi on that really surprisingly nice playground, cappuccino in hand.

Or maybe not. But I like to think that if I’d had more emotional reserves in the ‘ol tank or could have known how truly fleeting that season was, that it could have been different.

That’s the thing about hindsight, though. It’s only ever an exercise in imagination. And it can’t undo what was.

But now, in this time and in this season, I can apply that exercise in imagination and allow it to inform the choices and allocations of time and energy that are being made daily. And I’m finding more and more that I’m picking up the phone, not to scroll or to distract, but to call someone or send a text. I’m walking over to the fence and talking to my neighbor. I’m sitting in the silence of the post-bedtime hurricane, surveying the damage of the living room and feeling the tug towards a screen, but choosing often to forgo another episode of such and such, to plug in the phone for the night and walk away.

I can’t say that those nights are particularly exciting, or even productive, but there is a peaceful stillness to the way a brain naturally shuts down, maybe after a bath or a half hour with a book or a newspaper. Or maybe just in quiet, companionable silence mingled with conversation with my husband.

I don’t want to miss my life because I’m trying to escape from it. I want to lean into the hard, boring, painful parts and find out what He has for me there. Or I want to curl into a ball and cry out to Him that I can’t handle the pain, that I need Him to fix it, to answer me.

But I don’t want to be distracted from it. That’s not good enough any more.

Entertained sometimes? Sure. I still want that. But I want to be the one to make that call.

I don’t want my default setting to be “numb, zoned, consumed, detached.” I’m too aware of the sharp pains and pleasures now of real life, and that every minute I spend disconnected from it is a gradual atrophy of the muscles I need in order to stay in the present when the going gets tough. Motherhood is hard enough when I’m not handicapping myself by training my attention span back down to that of my very sanguine 6-year-old’s. Distraction is a poor master but a good occasional servant. I don’t need to constantly employ it in the checkout line or the car. Or when I’m in pain and tempted to turn away from real life.

It’s not cut and dry, and I’m not disavowing technology or digital engagement. But there is peace and clarity in pulling back, in assessing and evaluating and making conscious and intentional decisions about how this short time on earth is spent, and what it is spent on.

Sometimes I’ve joked in the past that I’m going to have to answer to God one day for every hour spent on Facebook. And while it was said tongue in cheek, that’s actually a terrifying prospect. Not that I used social media, per se, but how much time was spent there, and doing what.

The tools are neutral. Our actions with them are not. I don’t want to get busted having buried the talent.

Not because of any servile fear of God, but because what a waste. I wonder, when I think about Mother Teresa’s now-famed schedule, would she have found time to build a platform and grow a brand and get the MCs online, even if it would have been great for their fundraising efforts?

And I do sincerely wonder this. We have few saints to pattern our behavior after in this new digital frontier. I have a hunch that she’d probably err on the side of social media minimalism, just because she had such insight into matters of the heart. She’s a good saint, I think, to petition for prayers in this landscape of human loneliness and discontent. I think she would be happy to become a sort of patroness against isolation and loneliness. I think she’d like that a lot.

election day, politics, reality check, social media

The greatest, freest, and most decent

November 8, 2016

It’s election day in America. Love the candidates or hate them, we the citizens of the greatest nation on earth have the dearly-won privilege of educating ourselves and partaking in the voting process.

It is not a right to vote, it is a privilege.

It is a privilege that woman did not always enjoy. That black men in the 19th century couldn’t have dreamed of. That people without significant personal wealth or land were once denied. That immigrants who arrived on our shores poor and hungry but finally free would work towards for years, obtaining their citizenship and then proudly exercize.

America is broken and bruised right now, but she is still good. She is still the best and freest and most decent nation on earth, and the greatest experiment in human freedom that history has thus far produced.

Although we are straining at the social constructs that we once all held dear – or at least true – all hope is not yet lost for this great country of ours.

I was thinking about that this morning while watching my one year old toddle around with newfound ambulatory expertise, his chubby legs and too-small feet barely providing him the ballast to cross the living room. The fact is, no matter how fractured our social order might seem or how angry the media voices bleating out headlines, no matter how much mud the politicians sling at one another, this place we call home is still exceptional. And my tiny son, blissfully unaware of the problems and various national crises that assail us in the year 2016, had the good fortune to be born into the happiest and greatest place on earth.

Walk into a grocery store and smile at a stranger. 9 times of of 10, they will return the smile. Interact with a barista or cashier or other service industry employee and marvel at their friendliness and courtesy. Walk into a church or place of worship and do so freely, unencumbered by government harassment or persecution. Be confidant in the ability to find a place of worship, staffed by a member of the clergy of your faith, to worship with you in your faith tradition.

Put your children into a school that you can volunteer in, where you can advise the school board over the curriculum. Or teach them at home, or in a private school whose values align with yours. You have unprecedented choice and control over your children’s education.

Get a job and work hard, with integrity and timeliness and to the best of your ability, and see if you don’t advance along that career path, maybe even enjoying a raise or two along the way. Expect to be able to keep a significant – perhaps not significant enough, but still better than most places – portion of your income to spend and give and invest as you see fit. Take part of your paycheck and set it aside month after month and maybe in a little while there will be enough for a modest down payment on a little house you can own.

What I’m saying is that for all our problems, for all our difficulties and differences and the real ills that plague us as a people, America is still good. She is good and she is free, and she can continue to be good and even become great again, to the extent that her people do not lose sight of who they are.

America is not great because she is rich.

America is not great because of her many modern conveniences and all the newest technological advances.

America is not great because she is powerful.

America is great because she is good.

Because her people are good. Because there are millions of good Samaritans who inhabit this land between two shining seas who will still do the right thing when it is asked of them. Who will lend a hand and stop for an accident and report a crime and comfort a crying stranger. Who will take up the mantle of freedom won by generations past who sacrificed and bled for an unseen future and will carry it proudly and heroically into the unknown.

We must not forget that in this era of endless breaking news updates and fresh opportunities for outrage, that we are still good. That America is a good place. And that there are very few places like it on earth.

I have been to a few of them, and there is truly goodness and beauty everywhere. But America is something different. We have something special here.

Let us not lose sight of that. Especially tomorrow as our nation wakes in the light of a new administration, a new page turned in our national history. Whomever the heavy mantle of the Presidency falls upon tonight after the polls close, and however great the disappointment of half the country, we can still walk forward together in pursuit of a better, freer future for this great land of ours. We might have to work against our leaders and elected officials to realize these goals, but that does not mean they are unattainable. It just means we have to roll our sleeves up further and bend our knees in prayer more frequently.

Because America is still good. She is not perfect, but she is good. And she is worth fighting for.

On this election day, let us pray together in the words of St. John Paul II upon his visit to our great land 29 years ago:

Every human person – no matter how vulnerable or helpless, no matter how young or how old, no matter how healthy, handicapped or sick, no matter how useful or productive for society – is a being of inestimable worth created in the image and likeness of God. This is the dignity of America, the reason she exists, the condition for her survival-yes, the ultimate test of her greatness: to respect every human person, especially the weakest and most defenceless ones, those as yet unborn.

With these sentiments of love and hope for America, I now say goodbye in words that I spoke once before: “Today, therefore, my final prayer is this: that God will bless America, so that she may increasingly become – and truly be – and long remain one Nation, under God, indivisible. With liberty and justice for all”

May God bless you all.
God bless America!

Culture of Death, Evangelization, Family Life, motherhood, Parenting, Pornography, reality check, social media

Why “Don’t Look” won’t be enough

October 10, 2016

I am the mother of three sons and one daughter. My kids are young still, but my firstborn is now within a couple years of the average first age of exposure to pornography. Which means that kids as young as him have seen it, have stumbled upon in accidentally, have been intentionally exposed by an older sibling or cousin or neighbor kid, and are already struggling with feelings of confusion, excitement, shame, fear, and curiosity.

In this digital age, it is all but inevitable that my children will encounter pornography at some point during their childhood. And that breaks my heart.

But I can’t stick my head in the sand and just try not to worry about it, hoping that if I don’t mention it and if we’re careful enough at home and vigilant enough with our network filtering software (which is important!) and discriminating enough about our media consumption (also essential!) and picky enough about how we do playdates (SO huge. You have no idea what your neighbor might be watching late at night, and what might pop up on their son’s tablet during an innocent Youtube search for rocket launches or scenes from Team Hotwheels), we’ll be fine.

That isn’t enough. In other words, I have to equip myself as a mother to help my children navigate the murky waters of the digital world, so awash in pornography and violent, addictive content, and I have to equip my children to face this brave new world.

I can’t leave it up to chance. This one is too big, and the stakes are too high.

While both men and women struggle with pornography in increasing numbers, boys are particularly vulnerable in the era of a smartphone-in-every-pocket. Men are wired for visual stimulation. It’s beautiful and essential and intrinsically masculine, and it is a component of their intentional design that I wouldn’t change even if I could. But there is a multi-billion dollar market built around exploiting that facet of their nature and ensnaring young minds and hearts in a dark web of profitable addiction that is predicated on increasing levels of violence, misogyny, and dehumanization.

And it’s profitable as all hell, make no mistake about that. For every media soundbite or expert opinion that “a little porn is harmless,” or “pornography is a natural competent of a healthy relationship,” a rich pornographer who makes his or her living off of pimping out young women and children is laughing all the way to the bank.

(Porn kills love. For a totally secular perspective and a fantastic resource, check out “Fight the New Drug” and the great work they’re doing, especially with adolescents and college aged kids.)

I wrote a series on “porn proofing our kids” a while back, and afterwards a rep from Covenant Eyes: CMG Connect reached out to me about a new resource designed to empower parents to proactively engage with their kids on the topic of porn, and to help them build a safe, open, communicative family; a “safe haven.”

CMG Connect Parents is full of good video content, articles, and other resources for parents who are in all stages with kids of all ages.

Whether your family is already wrestling with this issue, you’re unsure of where to start (or whether your kids have been exposed yet) of if you’re like us and have young children and are looking down the pike to the future and wondering where to begin, this is a good place to start.

They are also offering a free 30 day trial of their acclaimed “Covenant Eyes” filtering program, a multidimensional resource that filters harmful content, alerts parents to potential problems, and can provide individual accountability and monitoring for help in overcoming an existing addiction. We’ve been hemming and hawing over which filtering software or device to use and when we need to make the leap, but after my husband spent 3 days last spring attending a conference for work, he walked away from the sessions on trafficking and addiction absolutely convicted that the time is now.

Even if your kids are little and aren’t using the internet on their own yet, now is the time to install those guardrails and establish a culture of safe and responsible media use. Not only are you protecting against accidental exposure (and I’ve seen some freaky stuff pop up totally unrelated on Youtube), but you’re also protecting the babysitters or other caregivers who come into your home and may connect to your network, along with houseguests and visitors who may access your WiFi (and in turn, you are protecting your network (hellooooo, targeted ads) against harmful content other people may access via your network without your knowledge. So many people are fighting a great battle, and you truly never know.)

Really, I can’t think of a reason to have unfiltered internet, period.

So do me a favor and start the 30 day trial, will you? And start clicking through some of the video content on CMG Connect. My favorite video is the one featuring two moms, with one mom walking the other through happening upon a probable pornography problem with her 14 year old son. It’s full of common sense, compassion, and a destigmatization of the problem, and it contains some tangible resources and a sort of guide map of what that journey look like for one family.

And of course, above all, we take our cue from Padre Pio: we pray, we hope, and we don’t worry. We don’t wallow in the “what ifs” or the regrets, and don’t anticipate the future with terror. Being proactive, wise, and confidant is a far cry from cowering and fearful. With common sense, open communication, and a helpful toolbox, our kids don’t have to become statistics in an adolescence behavioral journal.

I hope you’ll check it out.

(Thanks to Covenant Eyes whom I partnered with on this post for the industry-leading work they’re doing to empower families to stay safe and healthy. All opinions expressed are my own.)

About Me, motherhood, Parenting, reality check, social media

Smart phone, dumb mom

September 14, 2016

I wanted a pithier title than that, but the pun artist in me couldn’t resist. #sorrynotsorry

Last night my trusty Samsung Galaxy J6 (sounds fake, but real, and amazingly cheap!) bit the dust in the kid’s bathroom under incriminating circumstances that none of the 4 bathers present would cop to. Best the gal at Best Buy could figure this morning, I actually killed the phone a week ago, in all likelihood, when it went splat on the concrete and cracked the display, thereby allowing the magical power crystals installed there by factory unicorns to leak slowly back into the atmosphere, mingling with the stardust from whence they came.

Obviously I’m a big fan of technology. And my life as a mom with a job, kids, doctor’s appointments, volunteer commitments and the title of carpool and grocery schlepper has made me increasingly dependent on google maps, while far flung friendships have secured Voxer and WhatsApp a tender place in my heart.

But. But.

I am connected all the time. And while I like to fancy myself moderate in my usage, especially after my summer of self discovery and internet fasting, the reality is I’m super, super available to anyone who dings for my attention on that little square of magic in my pocket.

And I can’t always say that I’m the same for my kids.

This morning, untethered from my tiny screen, I found myself with the familiar case of the phantom phone checks, reaching idly for my back pocket or into the cupholder or my purse ever 15 minutes or so. I felt like a woman with a tick. I wanted to see what my sister was up to this morning and couldn’t call her, so instead I drove the 9 minutes to her house and pulled into the driveway, catcalling her with lines from Mean Girls and trying to entice her to come shopping. She didn’t take the bait, but she did invite me in for a cup of coffee and 30 minutes of cousin time. 30 minutes that would never have happened had I simply texted her, been rejected, and gone on my merry way.

Hmm, thought I, this actual, physical “stopping by unexpected” thing is kind of cool. I mean yes, she could have been in a towel and displeased to see me roll up in the minivan, but then again, she could have been delighted, as she was.

Once we made it to the store and I had my replacement in hand, I seriously considered bringing it into the library to activate it there while the kids played, but decided I wasn’t so much of a junkie that I couldn’t wait the extra hour until we were home.

Then a funny thing happened. We went into the library and it was story time. And I didn’t run away shrieking. And I didn’t pull out my phone and resign myself to multitasking during the milkshake song, mentally checking out while my kids shook their maracas and licked strangers. Instead I pulled Luke into my lap, plopped Evie into the circle of preschoolers, and I watched them. Listened to the story. Let Luke suck the (non lead based? fingers crossed) paint off of a wooden flamingo figure while the librarian read through 3 books and performed a really stand up rendition of the itsy bitsy spider. Once or twice I reached for my phone to capture a moment and send it to daddy, but it wasn’t there.

But I was there.

I was there, and it was good. And it doesn’t matter if I didn’t preserve the memory or share it with a single other soul. And I know this in my heart, of course, but it’s easy to live as if the opposite is true, as if every memory has to be captured, shared, tagged, and filed away as worthy of being experienced. All the while, the experience being the crucial thing that *is* being missed.

After the library I did something even crazier than story time, and I crossed the courtyard to a little pet store that I’ve walked past 100 times and never thought to go inside. We opened the door and there were dozens of real, live puppies in cubicles of soft straw, playing with toys, wrestling each other, sleeping in piles of fluff. It was semi magical, except for the devastating aroma of pee that slapped enough sense into me via my olfactory system and reminded me WE ARE NEVER GETTING A DOG.

But still.

I told the guy at the desk we were definitely not buying today, but could we look at that little keeshound puppy? He was happy to pull him out and put him into a little play yard with Evie and me, Luke looking on from the safety of his stroller and longing to pull out clumps of fur, no doubt. And the puppy was adorable and I was instantly 15 years old again, playing with the family dog (we had a keeshound named Mac, and he was irascible) and oh, how my fingers itched to snap a shot of Evie getting puppy kisses and nuzzling his fur. Also, I wanted to google “hip dysplasia in keshounds” and research the likelihood of using a live animal to bribe my 2 year old to potty train had any kind of proven track record for success. And also to send a WhatsApp to my 6 siblings that said “MAC!!!”

But instead I just watched her play. I picked up the puppy and cradled him in my arms, showing Evie the right way to hold “not too fast, not too squeezy,” and I soaked up the urine-scented moment of unexpected joy in an otherwise ordinary Wednesday.

Afterwards I took them both out to lunch, free Chipotle kid’s coupons in hand. I sat patiently and helped Luke pop pieces of quesadilla and rice, which is possibly the worst food to attempt to feed a baby in the whole world, into his little mouth. I poured some of my club soda into a condiment cup and let him try to hold it himself, which went exactly how you’re thinking it did. I wiped mouths and answered questions about cheese and why it’s stringy. I passed out lemon slices and picked up single grains of rice off the floor until finally we just gave up and slunk out in shame.

What I didn’t do was check my email. I didn’t log into my work messaging app to chat with colleagues. I didn’t open notebook to drop a rouge idea into text. I didn’t send a single vox, and I didn’t spend a single minute scrolling through Pinterest looking at healing Paleo squash recipes to welcome Fall with all your heart and also gold spray paint.

I was disconnected, but I was present. Am still present. And while my replacement phone is charging up beside me as I type, ready to be activated and to connect me back with the rest of the world, I am aware that I have a pressing responsibility to learn to do this better. My kids are growing fast. In a few years they’ll be clamoring for devices of their own, especially if mommy continues to use hers like it’s the most important thing in the room.

But of course it isn’t.

Or is it?

Is it?

I wouldn’t fault a casual observer for thinking, after spending a few hours or days following me around, that it was.

So here’s to a broken screen, which has done more in 24 hours to show me how broken my relationship with technology has become than any number of self improvement resolutions have done in recent years. Yes, I will reactivate the phone. No, I’m not going back to a dumb phone. But I also don’t want to continue being a dumb mom who is more tethered to her device than to her actual life. Maybe I’ll even leave the device itself tethered, plugged in and waiting for me at home, once it awhile.

(But we’re still not getting a puppy.)

Catholic Spirituality, Culture of Death, Evangelization, motherhood, Parenting, sin, social media, Suffering

The news is still good

July 25, 2016

The other evening I found myself cruising down one of the main drags through town, passing a swath of car dealerships on my drive through south Denver. The massive American flags that adorn their lots were all hung at half mast, whipping in a late summer thunderstorm, and as I passed them all in a row I flipped through a mental catalogue of disasters and tragedies, wondering which they referred to.

Was it Paris? Istanbul? Dallas? Baton Rouge? Munich? What horrifying thing has recently happened that I’m forgetting?

The thing is, the flags are always at half mast lately, and it’s hard to keep up with why. Not because any of these tragedies aren’t enough on their own to stand out as moments to grieve and self-reflect as a nation, but because they’re coming so fast and furious that it’s becoming less and less possible to keep track of what exactly we’re in a national state of mourning over.

I’m done trying to follow along.

Not because I don’t care, but because we seem to have crossed a threshold into a state of continual mourning, and the news of late – and the need to mourn for real, precious human lives snuffed out – is so horrifically large that it is, in my opinion, beyond what any one human heart can handle.

There is a real and present danger of social media making us less social, not more so. A strange thing to write on the internet, but an observation I’m becoming more confidant in by the day. As a finite human creature with a limited capacity for understanding, I don’t posses the necessary bandwidth to handle all the bad news from all the places. Not if I want to be effective in any real capacity in my actual, daily responsibilities.

There are moments I can clearly remember as rooted in terrible, show-stopping horror that left an entire nation paralyzed in grief and fascination and rage: Columbine, April 20th, 1999; September 11th, 2001. I remember every detail of those days: the color of the sky, the plaid comforter in my boyfriend’s dorm room where we’d all stopped on our way to class to gather around a tiny tv screen and make sense of the images coming across the airwaves, the low hum of a mini fridge stocked with frozen pizzas and gatorade the only noise in a cramped room crowded with nearly a dozen 18 year-olds.

But we are not meant to stay there, in that place of stuck, shocked, sorrowing, and scared. You cannot live in that place. There’s no life there. We can – and we must – pause, bow our heads, say a prayer … but then we must move on.

Because the only real way that I can combat evil in this world is by living out my particular vocation to my greatest possible ability. If I am actively seeking and responding to God’s particular will for my life, I can change the world.

But flipping channels won’t achieve that.

Whipping my internal dialogue into a frenzy of anxiety and despair after consuming “just one more” video stream about such and such situation unfolding live, watching endless content covering bodycounts, hostage negotiations, memorial vigils, and the like is not going to make me a better wife, a kinder mother, a more attentive neighbor.

When I spend my grief out into the diffused ether of Someone Else’s Tragedy, consuming facts and figures and details I don’t really have the right to know, in the first place, I am made impotent in my own little world, drained of the energy and peace that are essential to my primary vocation.

(And this is not to say that mourning for – and always, always, praying for – strangers is ineffective and unnecessary. It is neither of those. But there must be moderation, for our own sakes, and for the sake of those who depend directly on us for security and care.)

Someone told me once that one of the primary responsibilities of a parent is to secure the peace and sanctity of the home for our children’s sakes.

Am I doing that when I mindlessly glut on the Breaking News Situation du jour? Can I really shift my mind from scenes of massacre and chaos to nursery rhymes and reading sessions and diaper changes?

I am not God.

I cannot take in an infinite amount of information and an endless stream of chaotic grief and remain unchanged.

I can try to be like God. I can attempt to fill my finite mind with enough streamed content to overwhelm an external hard drive.

But I won’t remain unscathed.

I am a human being. I have a limited capacity for horror, and a propensity to paralysis and hopeless anxiety when that threshold is violated. Which it is. Routinely, if I allow myself to consume as much content as is available.

I have noticed a direct correlation between my own ability to unplug and my capacity for intimate, personal engagement with real life neighbors, friends, my children, and my spouse.

Even worse, overwhelmed and numbed by chaos and horror, I may withdraw into an apathetic “I can’t look at that so I’ll pretend it isn’t happening” posture, tucking my head down and staring into the infinity of a smartphone and an endless list of open browser tabs, searching for something, anything, to distract me from the pain of too much reality.

I am not advocating for withdrawing from the world, or even from refusing to watch or read the news. But I am advocating for judicious moderation, especially in these increasingly dark and frantic times.

We needn’t be consumed by the evils rampant in the world, not 24 hours a day.

Aware? Yes. Vigilant? Certainly? But over and above all else, at peace.

Unshakable, Gospel-centered peace that Jesus is Lord, that we are not in charge of our own salvation, even in a temporal sense, and that allowing an endless stream of horror and hatred to filter into our living rooms and emanate from our pockets is no way to be salt and light to a hurting world.

The world needs us to be Christ. And we are not infinite. We are not divine. We must take the gifts He’s given us, accept the grace He pours out, and then boldly go out into our neighborhoods and streets, proclaiming the Good News. And it is still good. He’s still there.

Though the world be burning down all around us, at least from what the cable news channels would have us think, Jesus is still Lord. And if we keep our eyes fixed on Him alone – no small “if” in a world so filled with distraction and pain – He will lead us to a peace that surpasses all understanding.

It is a peace the world does not know. But it’s one I’m desperate to know. So I must fix my eyes on the One who can, and will, deliver it.

Peace be with you.

Abortion, Bioethics, Culture of Death, politics, sin, social media, Suffering

Abortion {still} isn’t healthcare

June 27, 2016

It’s not. And in an ironic convergence of worldviews, I can see why SCOTUS would overturn a Texas law requiring certain minimum medical standards be met by abortion clinics.

Because abortion isn’t healthcare.

Which is why, I suppose, the Supreme Court refuses to hold abortion clinics to the same standards as other ambulatory surgery centers or, as it turns out, Botox clinics.

Makes sense, if what goes on behind closed (filthy, substandard, unhygienic) clinic doors isn’t under the purvey of actual healthcare, anyway.

Because abortion isn’t healthcare.

And since abortion isn’t healthcare, and women’s lives are less valuable than, say, the political capital to be gained in such a move by SCOTUS, overriding common sense and biological reality in the name of so-called reproductive freedom, then the ruling makes perfect sense.

Because abortion isn’t healthcare.

And it is more essential that we remove any barriers – even those pertaining to minimum standards for a surgical facility – so that women may avail themselves of the opportunity to have their fetuses forcibly evacuated from their wombs, than that we pause in any manner of regard for the woman’s health.

Let’s put aside the immorality of abortion for a moment. Abortion, which isn’t healthcare.

And let’s speak of the procedure in a vacuum, as it were, leaving aside the obvious, ludicrously-demonstrable humanity of the baby, and focus solely on the invasive surgical procedure of a second trimester abortion.

And let us examine why it is that today, a friend I know will check into a major hospital for a dilation and curettage (D&C) procedure to evacuate her womb of the remains of her precious unborn baby, now deceased several weeks, in order that her body will heal properly following a tragic miscarriage.

She will be attended by a trained, competent surgeon who passed her medical boards and is in good standing at an actual hospital. Her cervix will be dilated by unexpired medicine. A camera will guide her surgeon’s hands as the contents of her uterus are removed, carefully and methodically. Her vitals will be monitored by licensed nurses assistants, and an RN or perhaps a LPN will see to her post op aftercare. She will be accompanied every step of the way by licensed, trained medical professionals who, to the best of their ability, will keep her comfortable, will honor the dignity of her body and the body of her deceased child, and who will maintain the highest standard of medical care.

Because in her case, the surgery to remove her dead baby’s body from her uterus is healthcare.

But abortion isn’t healthcare.

Does SCOTUS recognize this on some unconscious level? That a D&C abortion procedure, unlike the medically-necessary D&C I describe above, is something harmful. Abhorrent. Relegated to a realm of hidden horror which sees neither the obvious humanity of the unborn child victim nor that of the mother herself.

How else could such a ruling be justified?

How else could a 21st century judicial body – the highest in the land – rationalize the decision to strike down legislation requiring that an abortionist be an attending doctor at an actual hospital, should the procedure incur complications and the need to transport the patient arise. How else could the justification be made that an abortion clinic needn’t meet the same hygienic standards as an outpatient vein clinic, or perhaps a freestanding plastic surgery practice?

Because abortion isn’t healthcare.

And, in a twisted obeisance to reality, the Supreme Court of the United States of America acknowledged that today, by failing to require minimum standards of medical competence – laughably low as they were – that would have at least ensured a higher level of physical protection for women who engage in a practice which is both emotionally and physically catastrophic.

Because abortion isn’t healthcare.

Catholic Spirituality, Culture of Death, euthanasia, Evangelization, Family Life, relativism, social media, Suffering

What can we do? Practical steps for living in an age of terror

June 13, 2016

God, I’m sick of this.

I’m sick of opening my computer in the morning and seeing the latest body count splashed across my newsfeed. Of my husband cautiously, almost furtively asking me over the din of a weekend breakfast table, masking the gravity of the situation from tiny ears, “did you see the news about Orlando?”

You don’t even have to wonder, anymore, when someone asks “Did you see …” Heart sinking, thoughts racing, inevitably, another terror attack.

Maybe it’s not any more dangerous to raise children in this age than in any other, and maybe that’s the illusion of an unceasing news cycle and the flat, digital world we dwell in, but it seems a hell of a time, just the same.

One week we’re agitating for more death, for death enshrined by law, slickly sterilized for public consumption by that convenient mechanism dubbed “privacy,” and the next we’re reeling from another mortal blow, more death, death in unprecedented numbers, death by ambush.

Death begets death.

And reading the news today makes me want to cry. To curl up into a ball and gather my children under my arms – not that they all quite fit there – and hide.

I didn’t sign up for this. For raising kids in a culture that is self destructing. For growing a family in an age of terror and hatred and so much uncertainty.

Except that I did.

Yesterday at Mass, before we’d had news of Orlando, our parish welcomed two new Christians into the family. As their parents held squirming toddlers over the baptismal font and their godparents clutched newly-lit flames kindled from the Easter candle, from Christ Himself, the adults promised on behalf of those squirming babies to reject Satan, and all his works, and all his empty promises.

To reject the glamor of death, the allure of evil.

Because it’s real.

And, for reasons God felt sufficient to merit the decision, our free will allows us to choose evil.

I choose evil every day. I give in to a surge of anger at a traffic light, tapping my horn in frustration, muttering under my breath about a texting driver (like I’ve never done the same.) I raise my voice to my children. I spend too much time surfing the internet and not enough time on my knees. I have a moment of pure rage towards someone well up in my heart, and rather than reject it outright, I nurse it, just for a moment or two, relishing the feeling of being angry. Of being right.

The only real answer to the problem of evil in our world is the very same answer to the problem of evil in my own life: conversion.

Continual, frustrating, and sometimes humiliating conversion. Because life without Christ is hopeless.

This world is a mess, and truthfully, it always has been. And yet He saw fit to redeem it.

But we must participate in that redemption, because He loves us so much He drew up the contract along those lines: active participation.

So here are some practical ways we can fight terror in our own homes.

1. Mother Teresa will be canonized this Fall, and one of my favorite one-liners from her is the best medicine for our age:

“What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.”

Love begins at home, in the family. It is where our children will learn – or will not learn – their intrinsic value. It is where they will learn to share, to give and receive a sincere gift of self, to witness sacrificial love, to be heard and to be seen, to be convicted of the inestimable value of every single human life. Give your children, your siblings, your family members more love than you can bear to give. Ask God for more patience, more humility, more courage, and love your children and your spouse with a love that is truly outside your self. I fail at this every day. I must keep trying.

2. Frequent confession and reception of Holy Communion.

Look, the world we’re living in, even if the internet is contributing a bit to the impression, is bat.shit.crazy. It’s not okay that I think about terrorism when I’m queuing up for my next flight, when I take my kids to a museum or a baseball game. But the number one thing I can do to protect them – and myself – is to live, as much as possible, in a sacramental state of grace. That means daily Mass when possible (note to self: even when 2 year old is kicking me in the throat), Confession every couple of weeks, and making a daily examination of conscience.

Not only does this contribute to a higher likelihood that I will die in a state of grace, please Lord, but it makes me a better person.

Without Jesus and the grace of the Sacraments, I am, as I’m sure is evident in some way from this blog, a fairly miserable loser. That’s just me being honest. If I can continually be redeemed and recreated as a better, happier, holier person, how far might that go in influencing my immediate neighbors for the good?

3. Devotion to the Rosary, and to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

We’ve been meaning to get our home enshrined to the Sacred Heart for a couple months now. We bought a beautiful icon, hung it in a prominent place, and have since somehow failed to have a priest come over for the official “enthronement,” despite knowing, oh, 2 dozen or so, personally. (If that’s not commitment to laziness, I don’t know what is. But I digress.)

We do plan to do it soon. But just having the image in our living room has me stopping multiple times per day to place a finger or a kiss across Jesus’ heart, reminding myself as I look at His image what I’m supposed to be doing, and for Whom. (For a quick explanation of how keeping pictures of your loved ones in your home is not idolatry, click here.)

I try (and mostly fail) to pray a Rosary each night. We’ve had off and on success praying a decade with the kids at some point during the day, this season being more on the “fail” side. Our kids sleep with rosaries at their bedsides for easy access during the night. They’re comforting sacramentals – tangible reminders of the real graces available to us through prayer and devotion – and, as my 4-year-old likes to remind us, “Mary kicks the devil’s butt.”

Yeah she does.

4. Smile.

Smile at strangers. Stop and help someone who’s car is broken down, if you’re in a safe area and you’re able to do so. Give that guy a dollar. Buy someone’s coffee behind you in line. Call your sister or your friend and offer to pick up some extra milk and diapers while you’re at Costco. Tell your husband to sleep in while you get up and make the oatmeal. Call your mother in law and tell her you love her. Put your phone away and talk to the checker, the barista, the girl sitting next to you at the pool. Tell your server if you like her nails, his glasses, her hair cut.

Reach out, reach out, reach out.

We live in a lonely world. We can each be a little light in the loneliness, and give someone else the gift of knowing that, at least in that moment, they aren’t living in an age of terror.

Hatred needn’t have the final word.

About Me, Evangelization, relativism, social media

Antisocial media: the isolation of over-connectedness

May 19, 2016

I spend a lot of time online. Too much time, truth be told. I’m considering taking a serious social media hiatus this summer, with a house full of children and a backyard filled with wading pools.

And maybe this time I won’t come back.

I don’t mean I’d stop blogging. Just that I’d stop with the other stuff. The posting and cultivating an online presence. The consuming of news culled from anonymous “relationships” on Twitter, the ingestion of a never-ending stream of content and beauty, captivating though it may be, from a thousand different sources on Instagram. And the everything on Facebook, that deepest-seated enemy of human productivity. (At least for this early adapter.)

I don’t think the human mind was much designed for endless scrolling. And it’s making me stupid.

Stupid, and discontented.

I know that’s a crazy thing to say given that I am, in fact, a writer who depends upon the internet to promulgate her work. The irony is not lost on me.

But the internet, increasing, is becoming less of a tool for me and more of a master. I’m stuck in Q1 with inboxes from multiple platforms overflowing, demanding daily attention, and then, tired from so much reacting, I sit and I scroll, mindlessly consuming and consuming and consuming until suddenly, it’s 10 pm and I’ve read some fascinating things about artisanal cheese-making and travel tips for the summer season but I’ve also seen a lot of pictures of weird celebrity awards show couture and pictures of Scandinavian living room furniture groupings. And bohemian paint colors.

So poor me, I work online and the online world is working me over. Boo hoo, right?

Here’s the thing; I believe that God has called me to the work I’m doing now in this little space, telling truths and distilling teachings and connecting cultural dots…and I also believe He is calling me to something bigger and, for me, much, much more challenging.

And it’s my neighborhood.

It’s the real world.

It’s my friend across the street who has given me bags and bags of adorable girl’s clothing and sippy cups over the years, and has never heard a word from me about Jesus.

It’s the guy at Costco who compliments me on my kids’ behavior, despite the number of them, and who gets a vague half smile and a half answer when he presses, wanting to know if we’re “done” now.

It’s the girl in my mom’s group at church who is really hurting, who doesn’t have a dozen girlfriends and sisters at her beck and call and is hungry for real fellowship with a living, breathing human person.

Those are all areas where I’m so much more comfortable hiding behind a screen.

I frequently field comments along the lines of “I’d never be brave enough to say/write that…” but the truth is, it’s easy to be brave online. Just like, I imagine, it’s easy to be truly horrible online.

The cost is modest. The stakes are low. And while it takes a certain thickness of skin to speak truth to darkness, it takes a far thicker skin to say it in person, in love, to someone in real relationship with you.

I love the online community I’ve found in the Catholic blogosphere and through connecting with other women. And some of those relationships are undeniably real, though limited in their depth and scope. But the ones that have grown and developed have involved taking further steps: phone calls, voxes, in-person meet ups while traveling. Participating in a deeper way in each other’s lives. So while they may have been planted in social media, they’ve bloomed in reality.

Social media has an ability to bring people together. But it also has a chilling segregating effect, enabling little intellectual ghettos, little echo chambers, to coexist almost entirely unbeknownst to one another, helping to foster the illusion that everyone else is like me, everyone else understands this.

And we who live under the dictatorship of relativism are hard pressed to find common ground, with all truths being subjective and all options being equally valid, to converse in a truly productive fashion with those who hold differing opinions.

If we disagree mildly, it’s inconvenient. If we disagree strenuously, we turn away from one another in disgust, branding the Other a bigot, a hater, a whatever-phobic.

There is no room for relationship. We’re all so utterly detached from one another, thanks to our screens and our self-imposed lines of segregation drawn across our newsfeeds and curated, click by click, by our own preferences and points of view.

When I encounter my neighbor, smiling awkwardly from behind her own garbage can as we drag our blue beasts to the curb, we exchange bland small talk about the weather, the downed tree limbs from the recent storm, the impending end of the school year. I don’t know what she thinks about Planned Parenthood selling baby parts, or who she’s going to vote for in November, or whether or not she’s considering taking her kids on a mission trip to Malaysia or if her marriage is in trouble. I don’t even know how old she is, to be honest.

And we scurry back inside, comfortably at ease from the up-closeness that breeds such a particularly American kind of discomfort. It’s the same reason I don’t know a thing about the girl who makes my favorite cappuccino down the street at Peets, but in Italy, at All Brother’s Bar outside St. Peter’s Square, I had Tonio’s email address and knew his children’s names. He would take Joey in his arms and bounce him behind the counter as he pulled shot after shot of sweet black gold, filling orders and calling out greetings to his patrons while bouncing a blonde toddler on his hip.

I want that kind of life again.

(I want that kind of coffee again, while we’re on the subject.)

I want the kind of forced closeness and relationship that seemed to come so effortlessly and so inevitably in Italy, where my language skills were so limited, but my relationship skills were challenged and strengthened just by grocery shopping.

And I don’t want to romanticize things because boy, we had our struggles there, and I would have given a dozen friendly baristas for one close mommy friend or a sister down the block in Rome. But there was something utterly communal, in the deepest sense of the word, about how we lived there.

And I want to live that way again.

And I think I can…or at least, I think I can make a go at it. I’m sure we’ll never find another Tonio, not in suburban Colorado anyhow. But I think I can slam the laptop shut for the bulk of the daytime hours and wander out into my neighborhood with my phone holstered safely in my bag or, better yet, left to charge alone on the counter. Maybe I can walk the 15 endless feet that separate our two driveways and invite Steph over for a glass of wine on the porch. (The introvert in me recoils in terror)

Maybe I can answer in the most powerful way possible the question of what’s wrong with this crazy world we’re living in? with the one thing that’s ever really changed the world: a sincere gift of self.

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May God bless you all. God bless America!

May God bless you all.
God bless America!