Real life keeps intruding on my playtime

Now that my computer seems back on track, I find myself needing to once more run out and send Buster stuff he needs for school. (He loves college life, btw, and is adjusting well. Strangely enough, so am I. It’s not a bad thing to get reacquainted with the spouse or to clean a room and have it stay clean. I adore my kids and miss them every day…but empty nest syndrome lasted only a week or so…Am I a bad mother?)

Anyhow, before I zoom out, allow me to direct your attention to these issues/stories and one day-brightening video for your enjoyment!

Deacon Greg relates this terrific story of a man working for the official canonization of his wife. Gwen Coniker sounds an amazing woman but of course this opens up all those, “my wife is a saint to put up with me” jokes. In our house, it’s the reverse. Go read Deacon Greg’s post, though, and the article. You’ll like. After you read about Gwen Coniker, just scroll up Greg’s blog for more very interesting stuff on Vocations in Africa (we have Nigerians priests all around us here – we’ve become the mission country – and they’re joyful and wonderful. But they speak so quickly…) and on whether Rock and Roll is a distinctly Catholic art form. Yes, really – read the whole provocative thesis here. The good Deacon is always interesting and lately more prolific than I. He is also not too happy with Cardinal Mahoney in Los Angeles but then that feeling seems to be shared by many. The Cardinal brings it on himself.

Professor Bainbridge shares some disturbing news from Dutch Dominicans. I find it troubling on several levels, and will write on it more later, perhaps. Unless someone smarter than me writes first., which is very likely. (H/T the always-interesting Maggie’s Farm, where one often finds thought-provoking links one won’t find elsewhere.)

Newsbusters gives Katie Couric credit for going where Diane Sawyer would not and makes a good point about the press, near the end.

Several people have emailed me this, wondering about it. The truth is I have never heard about Our Lady of America. I know that Our Lady of Guadalupe was named the Patroness of the Americas by Pope John Paul II in 1999, but until this morning I had never heard of this. Anyone? Anyone? Myself, I find Marian apparitions to be interesting but I am never really moved beyond that. Although I wouldn’t mind a trip to Lourdes!

Madeleine L’Engle has died. One of my happiest childhood memories was having A Wrinkle in Time read aloud to us by our fourth grade teacher in a Catholic elementary school. A prolific writer, Ms. L’Engle wrote for both children and adults – I recall reading and enjoying a book of hers about a piano playing woman and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. I don’t recall the name of the book, [update: Thanks to reader Mark L., it’s title is A Severed Wasp. I kept thinking, “bees…bees…”] but her love for that Cathedral (she worked in its library) and for the Episcopal church, of which she was an enthusiastic member, glistened through the pages. Her ruminations on the Incarnation, Bright Evening Star, is one of my favorite books because I too find the Incarnation a matter of year-long-wonder, not something to be contemplated at Christmas, only.

Speaking of year-long-wonder, our kids bring us lifelong wonder if we are open to it. Enjoy this adorable tyke and his father, both laughing their heads off. More later.