A Measure of Charity

I'm part of a small, plain, little family. I'm the Mom. There's a Dad, and three young children. If we were filmed in downtown Smalltown, we'd be pretty inconspicuous- just five ordinary people bobbing down the sidewalk with all the other bobbing people, tied together in a very normal way. We don't wear anything particularily special, except perhaps the brown scapulars or a crucifix for which we get curious looks and remarks- usually if we're right up close in an elevator or at a shop counter. Sometimes we seem odd on a Sunday downtown, because we're dressed up- a day when everyone else seems to be dressed way down. In fact, I guess we're a little odd because me (the mom) and the kids only dress up on Sundays- the rest of the week we are doing homeschooling or going to the tutorial on Wednesdays, or an occasional field trip or outing. We are on exactly the opposite schedule for dressing up or down than the rest of society.

I suppose when the UPS man comes to our door, he might notice some more oddities- the children are home with me- well, I'm at home, too- and they are either sitting at the table working on math or Latin, or they are running around like horses let out to pasture. I get a smile and a surprised look from him sometimes. The carpet cleaner named Jay looks around at the paintings of saints and the statues, and the schedules for school and just puts on his Ipod. Sometimes people are warm and ask us questions about our life, and sometimes they avoid getting to know us, because we don't fit into regular categories of culture. We are counter-culture: and that should be just fine in Santa Cruz. It actually is, for the most part; I find the society in Santa Cruz to be much more in the vein of: "Really? Wow, that's cool, whatever." This is somewhat of a relief compared to uptight Westchester County in New York, where quarterly reports to the school district are required; and you bear daily the more intense scrutiny of neighbors and secular friends.

But still, no matter- whether it be floaty Santa Cruz or lead-weight New York, we are a Catholic homeschooling family: and this is a project which takes the 110% of the whole family, Dad included. Both parents are the curriculum director, the cleaner, the person with interests, the friend, the piano teacher, the Latin teacher, the preschool teacher, the religion teacher and guide, the police PERSON and the cook- and occasionally a firefighter. We all have to look hard and carefully for friends and opportunities for social growth. This is where the really hard part begins.

Catholic families, whether in New York, California or Kansas, are like non-blips on the society's radar: we do this on purpose, because we want to pass Faith and Morals down to our children; and we have made the decision, based on what is going on in our area, to educate our children ourselves. We are entrepreneurs in the soul market, and as anyone knows who has started an entrepreneurial enterprise, it is often a hard and lonely process for the one with the responsibility. There are a lot of obstacles to success: fear of failure, finances, the sheer amount of driving, exhaustion, loneliness and not having the support from other families.

The support from other families is what I have begun to see as absolutely essential. We can't live in a Catholic vacuum- it ceases to be truly Catholic when it becomes a vacuum, for God created us in society and for society, and we have to be in the world- but not of it. In modern culture, with it's values increasingly anti-Christian, fulfilling our mission in this sense is more and more difficult. Our children, like young plants, need outside influences, but they have to be positive ones, chances for growth and learning, but not chances for corruption or confusion. So we need other families who understand our mission, with whom to share it: a society within a society.

Whenever we have moved into an area, there has usually been one or two families who are especially good at being hospitable to others: they host dinners, or St. Nicholas Day parties, or All Saint's Day celebrations; they start groups like the tutorial (a one-day supplemental school) or organize to provide food after Mass on Sundays so that families can stay around and get to know each other(if there's no food, families usually have to leave to find food for hungry children). They do this with very open hearts and hands to those whom they are just meeting! I have become more and more grateful to those people who have seen the needs of families, especially homeschooling ones, and have stepped up to an often difficult and thankless task. But to be hospitable, to support other families in their quest to bring up children who retain their innocence and who love God, is working directly for Heaven, Inc. - no unimportant job.

On the other hand, hard as I know it is to be hospitable, I have often found that this heavenly attitude is usually limited to a few families- and they are doing far more than their share of the work. I am beginning to believe that we are dealing with what is more of a moral issue than I realized. Let me explain.

If we homeschoolers are right, and the best thing for our children in the area we live in (some areas can provide great Catholic schooling and thus social outlets) is to educate them independently of the regular means, then we need support from other families: not want, but NEED support. Families in a feasible geographical area who are Catholics are each other's support systems. Sometimes we need to start a girls' or boys' group; sometimes we need to get together and clean someone's house who is sick so that they can homeschool; or be a counselor, a friend, when someone is down- but the principle, the attitude which must exist under all these activities is moral and biblical: "to clothe the naked, and feed the hungry, to give comfort to widows and orphans in their distress"- and from the Acts: "they shared everything, for the good of the community".

The most important thing a homeschooling family can do for the other homeschooling families in the area is to have a heart full of ready charity- not handouts (unless that is needed) necessarily, but a heart like God's: full of caritas, the love of God, the love of selflessness and open-ness to the needs of others. The heart that does not worry as much about personal likes and dislikes as what God thinks, the heart that learns to love with everything one has (always with prudence and the understanding of proper priorities). The beauty is, however, that the family which loves this way is often the richest spiritually- well, after all, we're dealing with the economy of God, not man.

Also, families have seasons: seasons of plenty in terms of finances and emotional well-being, and seasons of want on many levels. Other families must be flexible and ready to be back-ups- for the clubs or the tutorials, or the potlucks. Sometimes a family who has a sick mom is actually providing a center-point, a reason for the community to wake up and get together to help out. In God's economy, even sickness can be a good.

However, too often we let the three or so families who usually do everything to continue to do it until they simply can't do it anymore, and then suddenly the activities and support we took for granted are gone; or we base our willingness to do something on whether it is with someone we like or who treats us how we want to be treated. We cannot base real charity on fickle feeling, or natural 'simpatico', but rather on reasoned, willed faith and "works, without which, faith is dead." P.S.- this often brings a depth of supernatural 'simpatico', which makes the natural variety look like corn meal next to corn bread.

Some families have seasons of loneliness, especially just after moving into a new area. They are especially vulnerable as homeschoolers because there is no ready-made school group to plug into. Making friends can sometimes take a lot longer when there are few hospitable families in the area.

One family told me a story about how they had just moved and their children were lonely. The parents called a few other homeschooling families to ask for playdates, so that their children could get to know others- but amazingly, they receieved rather cold and vague responses. When I heard this, I wanted to personally punch the parents (of the vague, cold families of course). However, I was on my meds for poison oak so I knew this was a steroidal reaction. So I lectured them in my mind instead.

Really, though, this gets my dander up. It is too easy to get into a comfort zone, but we are PILGRIMS in this life, and we should always be ready to be charitable: all the more so because homeschooling families are especially vulnerable and needy: and for good reason. I believe there are some people (hopefully not me) who will have to answer to God for " ...if you have all wisdom, all virtue, but have not charity, you have NOTHING." This of course applies to many areas, to doctors and intellectuals and train drivers- but I believe that the family, whose foundations are being eroded daily in the larger culture, are especially the forum for charity: especially charity from those who should understand their obligations clearly.

Here's some tips: have a tea party for the little girls in the homeschooling group- how about once a month? Or start a late-night catechism for the dads every third Friday- provide salt-encrusted bread products and beer, too. Find out who is sick, and see if there's any way you can help- make this your silent, humble apostolate- your children will learn an invaluable lesson about charity from this. Start an email group like Barbara from New York did, where women from all over the place can email in questions and concerns, and get instant help from a huge source. Find the TORCH group in your area and become a servant. Be willing to be a substitute for the tutorial, or figure out how to start one. If you are part of someone else's group, DON'T BE FLAKY: remember that someone is putting out a lot of effort and hospitality to do it- either be a growth part, a consistent and helpful part, or don't sign up- do something else that you can be consistent with. Learn to do things that you don't really feel like doing, like trying to befriend the ones to whom you do not have a natural affinity, or the shy and hard to get to know. This is often the measure of charity.

Take care of your family: your own, and the larger family that God has placed in your area with you. Your life will be richer and God will be pleased. What greater good is there than pleasing such a good God?

God's Fool: A Reprint

Almost early October, a cold wind ripping through the tops of the trees, flowers and leaves still hanging on, holding on to life. In a small, eye-of-the-storm corner of the garden, a tuft of lavender September flowers are peeking through a hole in the tough shrub. On the tiny stalks, nestled in the flowers, are large bumblebees, dying. Death returns in the midst of flowers, and it is just a few days before the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi.

Mother Church knew what She was doing when She placed St. Francis’ feast here, in this season of nature’s death. For St. Francis was a man who knew that all of nature teaches man about God, about the joy of spring, but the joy of a spring out of a fall and winter. St. Francis was not a jovial, idiotic, eternal optimist. He was optimistic about eternity, but only because of the greatest wounding and death and resurrection ever achieved: Christ’s.

As G.K. Chesterton points out, St. Francis’ entry into the world came in the fall of the world’s purgation of its paganism and nature-worship. Christendom had eschewed the spiritual lessons of nature in its attempt to escape nature-worship. Francis burst into life, to call the world back, now baptized and purged, to learn of God through His creation; and he knew that the little in life must be protected, and loved, and celebrated, because that requires humility- whether in washing a leper’s diseased body, or in providing a blessing for the animals of children. Humility is the foundation of the spiritual life, along with love, and these the little man of Assisi embodied.

How did Francis first learn humility? Again, I refer to G. K. Chesterton’s poetic analysis. Francis was attracted, with all the force of his powerful nature, to the chivalric and romantic ideals of his day. These were the days of dynastic Italian feuds and the Crusades, and Francis fell to the charms of this pageant. His stalwart and stable Assisi was his oyster, out of which he would spring in pearly brightness to troubadour the world. Suddenly, his world was turned upside down- as Chesterton says, his world was literally turned upside down. His soul, in meeting the Lord through locutions in the Portincula and on the battle march, was unfettered and set asail on the wild waters of the love of God. He saw that everything he knew: Assisi, chivalry, his family, his body, his soul, were all hanging upside down and totally dependent on God and His love. Everything. He then saw himself for what he was, a fool and a puffed-up fool. He knew also that everyone else, in heaven and in Assisi, could see him for what he was, as Chesterton puts it, “ like a fly on a windowpane’.

What might strip other souls of courage to go on, Francis responded to with total abandon, abandon almost unparalleled in the history of the Church, abandon to the will of God in imitation of Christ and Our Blessed Lady. Francis used the language of chivalry still, but in the service of God and in acknowledgement of his new understanding of his true relation to the God Whom he loved with ardent fire: he called himself God’s fool. In the language of chivalry, a ‘fool’ was what we would understand as an entertainer, but a comedian-sort, more like the Three Stooges or John Belushi. It is sadly indicative of our day that fools are held up as “comedic geniuses” and celebrities, but Francis knew what a fool was. He knew that he was a fool, and that his only dignity was that he was the fool attendant upon God: and paradoxically, then, what a dignity he had! For God’s fool has a greater dignity than any worldly dignitary. Francis also used the title of ‘fool’ in the sense that he was bent upon serving his Lord and his Love in whatever capacity, in whatever cost to himself and his own thoughts of self-dignity. Almost seven hundred years later, St. Therese of the Child Jesus would live out the same self-abenegation and humility in search of her Love, her Lord, by using the imagery of being a toy, like a ball, waiting in deep longing for the Child Jesus to want to play.

Thus did Francis learn humility: and his humility and his great love of God were born almost simultaneously. All of his actions and words can only be seen correctly by the twin lamps of humility and love of God. His care of the poor and sick, his journeys to the Holy Land to preach love of Christ to Muslim and hardened Crusader alike, his warrior-like defense of the dignity and sanctity of the Eucharist, and his stigmata, all come from these two lights. He was a joyful, but probably more serious man than he is often portrayed. He was battle-hardened and a man who understood the darknesses and illicit attractions embedded in the world of the flesh, and the death to the soul they caused. Yet he was a man full of love, an ardent and chivalrous love for Christ and because of this, for all creatures, regardless of size or importance. He was joyful in and because of his poverty, because this state helped him to remain humble and detached, set free on the wild sea of God’s love.

St. Francis would grieve for the death of bees in the early days of October, but yet would rejoice in that they played their greatest role in reminding and helping to prepare souls for death; and that they demand humility of souls, because we share the same death, and our days are “ short, like the flowers of the field.” It is good for us to remember about death, and so to turn to faith and hope in Christ and His resurrection. The glory of the autumn leaves shout and sing a last song, as if to remind us of that hope in the resurrection, the spring.

St. Francis, God’s Fool, pray for us.

Did You Pay For That F-16? Are We Responsible For A Little Boy's Death?

Wierd title, I know. I'm trying to be part of the wake up call for Americans: did you pay for that F-16 that blew up a house with a family in it, in a territory that was not owned by the nation that sent the F-16? Are we responsible, as a people, for what "is being done in our name" in the Middle East?

As Christians, we need to be "gentle as doves, but wise as serpents"- in other words, we have to work for peace, but we really can't unless we know what the serpents are actually doing. The video link I've posted below is a really good, serious look at what has been happening between the state of Israel and the illegally occupied territories of the Palestinians- from the viewpoint of Israelis for Peace, Palestinians and various journalists.

Right now, we live in America, whose democracy is being eroded in large part by a media that has given in to large government and corporate interests: as Thomas Jefferson said, "I would rather live in a country with a free press and no government, than a country with a government and no free press". He understood rightly that without journalism commited to the truth with courage, democracy or true freedom can easily be morphed into a pseudo-democracy, an Orwellian oligarchy disguised as 'free'.

We need to start to look more closely, find other news sources, and TURN OFF the mainstream coverage. Check out foreign news services, or look up the organizations listed at the end of the film. This is about our responsibility to know what our government has done in the last twenty or thirty years, in terms of the Middle East and Israel in particular- and where our own tax dollars have gone in the paradigm of this fight over territory. I believe it will be something we each will have to answer for: as individuals, because a nation is made up of individuals.

We aren't getting the real story: and perhaps this film is only part of the story, but it rings a lot more true than Bill O'Reilly, Dan Rather or Ted Turner's CNN (Who in their right mind would trust anything he puts out, anyway?) At the least, try BBC America on cable.

Here's the link:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7828123714384920696&q=peace+propaganda&hl=en