Do you mind more photos, from a different angle, of the sewing room? It’s where I’ve been holed up! And I cannot, of course, show you any pictures of the actual things I’m working on…
Why does crafting inspiration only strike for me after Thanksgiving? I blame creative tardiness partially on the mild Fall we had, pulling me into the garden rather than the sewing room. All summer I could not concentrate much on knitting, nor did I have any thoughts about projects.
Now, with little time left, I’m brimming over with ideas, and my newish crafting room (still in progress, awaiting a wooden table to replace that temporary one, among other things) is brimming over with the detritus!
A good reason to celebrate all 12 Days of Christmas and leave grandparent gifts for Epiphany (see my link below on the ways to live the season of Christmas!).
We had a lovely day and weekend, though, despite the sickness. John Folley was taking the photo so he’s not in it, but it captures a little of our joy!
(By the way, that gorgeous painting is by him, a gift to us. Consider purchasing and sponsoring and sharing real art this holiday season and beyond. And consider subscribing to John’s email in that link for an update, coming soon I’m sure, that will feature a positively stunning portrait I caught a glimpse of recently of a dear friend. Since I know her, I can tell you that her spirit comes through this art; it’s not only a beautiful portrait — it’s a true one.)
I also need to put my thrifted pressure canner (yay!) into action, and put up all this turkey broth, as there is no room in my freezer whatsoever for any of it!
My new podcast episode can be found here, answering the question of how we can do better with teen culture. Even in the most family-oriented, homeschooling circles, people somehow revert to the norm of catering to teens in a worldly way.
It’s an impulse that comes over us all; I understand it. I can remember being in Toys R Us (remember that godforsaken place?) for some reason, right before Christmas, when my first was about two. I was overcome by an almost overwhelming urge to buy everything for him! I knew that was not a good idea (even if I could afford it)! But I wanted to!
There’s something quite normal in a parent rushing to give a child what he wants — or thinks he wants –even against the understanding that it might not be good for him. We almost can’t help it sometimes — there are many cases where I succumbed, that’s for sure.
Call it the undirected generosity of natural love. Fulfillment seems to manifest in handy cultural forms — great blobs of desire turning ineluctably towards warm, encompassing, rolling fogs of satisfaction that beckon us to submit, to open ourselves with the relief of passivity. It would all be so easy.
We strive when our children are very young to monitor every sugary treat and to guard them from invasive influences. But then in that second decade, when they are teens, we are tired; we start to question the possibility of resisting and are tempted by a life where we can just be parents of teens, and not keep up the responsibility anymore for guiding them, That word, teen, in itself, contains a vast implication of a release from the unpleasantness of bearing the brunt of their attitude. Can you hear the siren call of the world, to just let others take over and do to them… whatever it is that is done to teens… that was done to us too… that has not worked out well. The culture that wants our young people for its own, because it has given up on natural reproduction, yet all things, even cancer, do seek to reproduce, if only in an opportunistic way.
“I have a teenager now, so of course I had to drop them off at the mall… ”
“We watched a movie… I didn’t love the overall message but the kids liked it and it was cute… ”
“I took them to a concert, dropped them off, hope they have fun!”
The point isn’t to shelter our littles and then release them into the popular culture. It’s to recover, even if only in a second-hand memory, and create, organically and calmly, a real culture, one not based on what has been packaged up for us by entities we have not fully examined, yet unthinkingly follow. But this takes bravery.
(Do teens have to go to the mall? I wouldn’t totally object if there were something to buy at the mall, but (although I haven’t been there in ages myself) it seems as if there really isn’t anything worth the price. If most things there are tawdry, made of poor quality materials, ugly, expensive, and “made by slaves” as my mother used to put it, then that should tell us something. I wish I could share what going “downtown” in New Haven, CT, in the 60s was like, with storefronts decorated by the owners with bright and charming scenes, including vast and involved crêches. It’s not simply nostalgia to point out the very real difference in what commerce has become.)
Above all, it takes bravery to resist the urge to let real, everyday life diverge so shockingly from our goals. Having integrity and being willing to keep fighting the rot, at least in our own homes — that takes bravery!
The payoff is a tremendously heartening and beautiful life of young people learning, giving, and creating, which they will do if given the chance and a little stern corralling. Our homes and communities could be bursting with young life and our older children could be finding their path to their own vocation to love, for that is what they are actually doing in these years — let’s not lose our resolve just when it matters!
I cover this challenge at length in my book set, The Summa Domestica, (note! also now available in paperback!) and in that podcast I mentioned, here at the Center for the Restoration of Christian Culture, on teen culture.
bits & pieces
- You’ve heard me talk here and on my other blog about Fr. Paul Mankowski, SJ, a dear friend who passed away last year. My husband has edited a book of Fr. M’s writings under the alias Diogenes, for decades an anticipated feature in Phil’s publications. You won’t want to miss it! It’s called Diogenes Unveiled — would make a great Christmas present for that someone who likes his revenge cold and his wit blazing hot!
- I found this short interview with Erik Voorhees, crypto expert, informative on the question of the FTX debacle and what Sam Bankman-Fried was doing. For a basic understanding of what the heck is going on with this news story, Voorhees is articulate and clear.
- There is a reason people are acting out in scary, horror movie kind of ways and imposing these ways on us as “normality”: The revenge of conscience by J. Budziszewski.
- Did you know that a kilt (at least a man’s kilt) is put together like this? You bunch up a muckle of fabric and put your bahookie on it and stand up? Och! I’m dumbfoonert! (I’m on a mission to start making more clothes, especially woolens in winter and linen things in summer — after Christmas! This link is one of the rabbit holes I went down… )
from the archives
- Lots of emails about toddler behavior! Don’t forget all my posts, not to mention whole sections of Volume 1 of The Summa Domestica. Start here: Toddler Life.
- Plan now to celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas, which begin on Christmas Day! What would be awful would be to have the same usual consumerist pile of gifts on the Day, and then to think you had to have gifts on each of the other days! Sure, that would be overwhelming! Instead, do all the things you pile into that one day spread out over the 12, and be a lot happier! In my post I explain how to live the days and how to relieve the gift pressure, while actually enjoying the presents that are given, more.
- We got sick before (me) and after (him) Thanksgiving, so I still have not done more than put a wreath on my door. But here is a roundup of my Advent posts.
liturgical living
Enjoy your Sundays of Advent as we make our journey to Christmas!
follow us everywhere!
My book, The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life is available now from Sophia Press! All the thoughts from this blog collected into three volumes, beautifully presented with illustrations from Deirdre, an index in each volume, and ribbons!
My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing!
My new podcast can be found on the Restoration of Christian Culture website (and you can find it where you listen to such things) — be sure to check out the other offerings there!
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