Exhaling

Comment by JustMe

January 18, 2008 @ 10:28 pm

It’s lovely. This would fit right in beautifully with the Catholic Moms corner of the blogosphere and help beef up not only home-schooling, but also help show how to implement Catholicism daily and beneficially. It might be fun, KT, and it’d be a good way for folks to get to know you better.

Comment by Ann

January 19, 2008 @ 5:20 pm

I didn’t realise or had forgotten that you are a home- schooling Mum which would account for all those blog absences!
All that praying….I can hardly take it in, but I know in my own parish a family who were known for their more than ordinary devoutness and some of the children, now well into adulthood, attend daily Mass when they can.

The seeds you are sowing now will bear fruit, I’m sure of that, and if it turns out not to be in religiosity, it’ll be in character or uprightness of behaviour.

So, my advice to you is go with your motherly instincts on this, together with prayer you can’t go far wrong whatever you decide, come Easter.

Comment by kathryntherese

January 19, 2008 @ 9:13 pm

Yes, a homeschool Mum. Just a little.

Does it really seem like “more than ordinary devoutness” to pray at each meal and at bedtime? I am afraid I made it sound more than it is. It seems pitiful little to me.

But, yes, they are seeds that we must water and fertilize with our own parent-prayers, in the hope that they sprout and grow and that the practice of prayer is embraced by them on their own.

Whether the blog is helpful or enriching to anyone else remains to be seen, and is what I will be attempting to discern over the next weeks. So, your prayers will be appreciated as well.

Comment by kathryntherese

January 19, 2008 @ 9:19 pm

And, I don’t know if I’m really worth getting to know any better, JustMe! But it IS fun to see pix of my kids on the blog!

Comment by JustMe

January 20, 2008 @ 12:57 am

Well, I don’t know any lay Americans who pray the Angelus, KT, let alone any who run an examen with their kids (tho’ I think I know one woman who may do so at least prior to Confession), so it seems substantial to me–tho’ I did know other parents who prayed nightly prayers with their little ones and help out with religious ed and the children’s liturgy, etc. I also never knew anyone who homeschooled while I was raising both sets of kids– and truly, isn’t that one of the greatest benefits of homeschooling? Mom gets to run the show all day long, which protects her children in so many ways (it makes one sick to know how many)– as well as ensures that the right things are taught, and the harmful things left out. It’s a very hard slog, tho’, I’ve heard, and so, all possible internet support may well be crucial for some.

My yardstick was also what I saw blow up too often for kids. I’d heard it for decades here and there — many hated religion (”It was shoved down my throat!”) IF they hadn’t somewhere along the way grasped the notion that they were nurturing a personal relationship with the Lord. Except for a lack of that sort of passion about it, it was also true for my husband, who, after private Catholic schools of nuns and later, Christian Bros., a couple years in the Peace Corps after college and a few more in the Forestry Service, had immediately left behind the family nightly Rosary after supper, and tho’ he still went to Mass, had left behind the Sacraments, too– not being able to believe the Holy Eucharist wasn’t more than a symbol, after a lifetime of It! What brought him to a crossroads was our now all going to Mass together – he felt it was an awful example to my kids to not receive Him, and even worse now that we were also picking up my little cousin each Sunday for Mass so that she would be allowed to attend religious ed classes to prepare for her First Communion. He arranged for a lonnnnnng confession, and began to receive Holy Communion again, hoping for belief, but trusting until then, that in the Lord’s opinion, the goodwill of receiving Him was not “too much a lie” for him to live.

Well anyway, good luck with the ‘blog(s), kt, and with all you’re doing. Indeed, I pray for it all, and for all of you, tho’ likely not as often as you pray for me and mine.

Comment by JustMe

January 20, 2008 @ 11:21 am

Oops – I always forget a quote followed by parenthethes closed puts up a winking face in these blogs – sorry.

I came back to say thanks for having always let me be so honest here, and to add that my husband never again stepped away from the sacraments. Rather, he seems to be leading one or two back to them these days, surprisingly so even to him, as he doesn’t really speak of it, but simply lives it.

Comment by kathryntherese

January 20, 2008 @ 11:49 pm

Honesty is what I embrace here, and I am grateful that you feel free to be honest, JustMe. I always find that those who have strayed from the path know the path better than others, and often draw others toward it, even somewhat unknowingly.

It’s all good. God knows what He’s doing, and He uses every scrap of what we are and what we do. The amazing thing about grace is that it makes things “unfair.” By human standards. But it’s all God’s beautiful justice/righteousness.

Do people really not say the Angelus? I am an anomaly. I love that prayer.

Comment by Carol

January 24, 2008 @ 12:24 am

Maybe you love it because it comes naturally to you.

Kathryn, it honestly seems to me that you’ve found your ideal ‘blogging niche over at your new ‘blog, Exhaling at Home (Opus Gloriae). I think that if I were you, I’d just add to it the books/other links from here, and concentrate on that one. It’s fun, very lively very sweet..and I’m thinking you’ve never been entirely comfortable with this one. At first I was going to suggest that you keep this one solely for posting poems, but really, you should just keep putting the poems into books. That seems to be His plan, too, doesn’t it? Well, anyway,just some food for thought.

Comment by kathryntherese

January 24, 2008 @ 8:47 am

It is food for thought. And I am thinking.

But I would like the other blog to focus on how we live the liturgy at home. I don’t want to post other kinds of ponderings there.

Maybe my “other kinds of ponderings” aren’t worth posting ANYWHERE, and I should just keep them to myself…

Keep talking. Keep praying. And I’ll hope God hits me in the head with a brick to show me what He wants

Comment by Carol

January 24, 2008 @ 12:29 pm

Hey, hey — “maybe my .. ponderings aren’t worth posting anywhere, and I should keep them to myself” is MY line, not yours!

And here’s one reason why I say so: When you said in a different post about our reason for being here in life– “Yes, to love others. It’s the HOW that is often difficult. We want to love one another, but it is often difficult to allow ourselves to be loved…” –that last line which is a paradox opened a necessary and quite new door of thinking in me. It explained a lot of things not only about human beings in general and especially in such a cold, hard culture as ours, but also perhaps about myself, and my self is the only being I can change.

The child-like have no problem allowing others to love them, and what a gift that is. Our grandson literally runs with joy to greet “Uncle Bill.” Bill is an elderly bachelor, a big burly guy who often speaks gruffly, yet little S who comes up to Bill’s kneecap knows that Bill loves him. Grandson is the only one who doesn’t yet know that he absolutely melts Bill’s heart. Thankfully, they both allow their selves to be loved. I see what a gift it is, now.

And you’re right.. the other ‘blog does have a certain theme that might be too diffused — and you might also not wish to lose this little space in which you aren’t Mommy and Teacher, but are your KT self before, after, and beyond even if not really apart from your wife/mom self. To explain that (maybe), there was one day I poured my husband a half glass of milk at supper.. when he asked for more, promising to be careful, lol, I was actually afraid I’d become exclusively a mom–that my original self had disappeared, and it was nice to find, on a later airplane, a non-mom self who wasn’t uncomfortable with that, and not necessarily the self I knew from before.

Well, anyway, you saw what I didn’t and you’re right; and do know that this ‘blog causes me and surely many others, great thought.

Comment by kathryntherese

January 24, 2008 @ 10:57 pm

Thanks for that, Carol – so often, it is in conversation that things become clearer, because weare impelled to wrap our fluttering thoughts in words and see them objectively.

That’s why we’re here and keep typing, isn’t it?

Yes, you’ve captured the essence of my desire to maintain both blogs, for different audiences, or the same audiences in different modes! Some people won’t care about this one, and some won’t care about that one. But they both seem necessary for right now.

You can help me reassess this again after Easter

Comment by Gabrielle

February 5, 2008 @ 12:11 am

I really like your new blog, kt; it’s warm and nurturing and spiritual. If I were you (!) I’d keep both, plus start another one, because I would like to hear more about your life as a lay Carmelite. So there you go. A third blog just so I can hear more about your life as a lay Carmelite. Merci.

Comment by kathryntherese

February 5, 2008 @ 9:46 am

Ha! A third blog it is, after all, I don’t want to get bored!
Here’s more about my life as a lay Carmelite: it’s time to elect a new Council and I’ve been asked to run for President of our Chapter. But even though I have a personal policy of saying YES if at all possible (assuming that whatever someone asks me to do is what God is asking me to do), I think it is legitimate for me to say no this time. Everyone should have a turn taking that responsibility, but I really don’t believe I could do it justice at this point in my life. There are others who could do a better a job.

So there’s a little insight into my Carmelite mind, fwiw.

This blog is open to Carmelite discussions. I don’t know why I haven’t brought Carmelite spirituality specifically to the fore by now. It IS the way I exhale