In the Wake of Evil

After this most recent massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT, comments about gun control were first on the scene, often in the same breath as "how horrifying".  I think we all know that guns are dangerous and that it's unwise to let just anyone have a gun.  However, people who go on shooting rampages are not your average law abiding citizens.  We are held accountable by law only after we do something wrong.  In this case, the effects are devastating and permanent.  So much so, that we instinctively look for ways they could have been prevented.

Clearly, those who call for tighter gun control want to save people.  However, we all do, even those who fight gun control.  Glenn Reynolds from Instapundit.com had an article in USA Today about gun-free zones and the danger they pose.  Ace of Spades had a post commenting on this article titled "Gun-Free Zones Don't Deter Killers Determined to Bring Their Guns to Kill People" on 12/14/12 @ 8:09 PM.  There is a viral comment credited to Morgan Freeman.  And Darrell Scott's 1999 statement after Columbine resurfaced as well.


I'm not prepared to discuss all the ramifications of gun control or school prayer, nor do I want to moderate such heated discussion on this forum.  However, tragic events such as the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School cause national grieving.  In their wake, we desire (individually and as a society) to examine what went wrong and how it could have been avoided.  I believe this is an honorable endeavor.  We regret what happened, we value human life, and we want better for ourselves and our children and our society.  Another aspect is that this pursuit to "fix" problems help us to process such devastating events as a society.  At the very least, they allow us, in the wake of despair and demise, to move forward with our personal lives and to hope that we do better as a society in the future.

I remember hearing Darrell Scott's statement back in 1999.  That was also a time of national grieving.  And for many it was the beginning of repeated massacres widely broadcasted on television.

I've seen many respond saying that we cannot promote prayer in school because of separation of church & state.  This is my response. The idea is for individuals to pray - we don't have to answer the questions about which God or who is God (except in our own personal search).  Allowing and even encouraging spirituality in people allows respect of natural law and a higher power above our own selfish hearts, which so often lead us to many disheartening situations.  And separation of church and state means that the church cannot tell the government how it should be run AND the government shouldn't tell churches how to run either.  This separation should support respect and the search for love that sacrifices everything for humanity.  And yet we, our society as a whole, often uses separation of church and state to cause more conflict and spread more discord.  At least, that's how I understand it now...but I'm still seeking.

Keep searching,
GT <><

Parenting an Adult Child

It’s easy as a mom to get lost in the mundane, repetitive, ins and outs of cleaning the house as it is simultaneously messed up again, washing dishes when dinner is finally cooking only to realize more dishes come right after dinner, and preparing lunches/laundry/love for the next day.  I will not say I savor any of the small, present frustrations, but I do realize that they are just that – small and temporary.

The first moment I held my eldest son, I remember feeling overwhelming love...the very second moment, however, I caught a tear on my cheek as I thought "He's going to grow hair on his face one day".  To me, that moment was anticipating all the worries and concerns my child would one day face, and also my own heartache that I realized would inevitably follow.  Susan Engel, a professor at my alma mater, wrote this article for the NYTimes on just such concerns about parenting an adult child.

Fortunately for me, that’s still a few years down the road.  I’m not any more excited about the day to day dole drums and dramas of the young years.  But I will practice patience, perseverance, and polite listening with all my might because bigger projects requiring these tools are coming our way, faster than I care to admit.

Thankful for the small stuff (and the smallest among us),

GT <><

Long Return Home

It's time to come back to the blog.

December fast approaches, and I'm feeling reflective a little bit early this year.  Maybe it’s because this year was so full.  There were opportunities for learning at a new job, and the end of said job.  A return to home and opportunities for reviving neglected responsibilities at home.  Baby #4 came in October and my 30^th birthday looms near the end of the year, at once granting feelings of youth and age, beginnings and endings to different chapters in our lives.  We started escrow on a new house last week, investing in a newly imagined future, then realizing it means leaving our current home and neighbors and a little piece of our hearts behind.  The joys, blessings, and reasons to be grateful out shine the sorrows, sufferings, and sighs that blur into the background, emphasizing the contrast, adding to our appreciation, and increasing our hope.

With all this going on, I couldn’t wait until New Year’s.  I'm getting a jump start on 2013 with some Thanksgiving resolutions.

1)      Eat with intention.  I hate to admit it, but gluttony is one of my favorite sins.  Blessed with abundance, our society seems to excuse this with ease.  The holidays provide especially strong temptations, whether due to the excess of celebration, the power of nostalgia, or simply the encouragement of indulgence for indulgence sake.  It reminds me how truly lucky we are to have so much and how many people the world over are without.  I’m simultaneously saddened by our waste in such extravagance and how I personally overindulge.  It’s my earnest goal to indulge less this year.  It’s not solving world hunger, but I’ll be aware and work towards more temperance in my little world.

2)     Lose weight, exercise, get in shape.  This is the double whamming following #1.  At this point in my life, I need to start from scratch.  I want to walk 4 days a week.  If I can’t for whatever reason, I won’t let it derail me, and I’ll make it a priority again the next day.  Walking, working up to running, graduating to other activities is the goal.  This will take many baby steps.  Maybe next year I can set a more concrete goal of running a 5K, but I’m not there yet. And I’m okay with that.

3)     Improve personal grooming habits.  No more nail biting, knuckle cracking or other various impolite activities.  It’s not just impolite, it’s unsanitary (I can hear my mother’s voice).  This is on my list every year.  What is so challenging for me, I think, is that I can be good all week long, and then in two minutes I do so much damage that it feels like negative progress.  And yet, I still believe it’s a worthwhile pursuit, even if I continue to fail.  I think each year I actually want to succeed a little bit more than the year before.  And one year, I will.

4)     Make time for chores each day.  This is a goal to benefit the other people in my life.  I know that I can’t clean everything every day and still have the quality time with everyone that is most important to us.  The idea is to have a more organized home.  If everything has a place, it's easier to clean a little bit every day and to access the things we need.  Example numero uno: The kids should know where to put the toys away, and we should require them to do so each day.  I think this teaches them discipline that will serve them throughout life.  Also, our house will be less like a natural disaster and more like a home.

With a move on the horizon, this year organization is key.  I want to spend time each day clearing clutter, organizing what we need to keep, donating useful things that are no longer useful to us, and tossing the rest. If I do this every day, I think the move will be less intimidating and might actually be enjoyable.  Plus, I’ll have systems in place that could translate to the new house.  The payoff here could be huge!

When I was working, it was easy to put off chores for the more important things in life – like quality time with my husband and children.  Now that I’m home, I know that much of my free time goes to Facebook, email, and more preferable (read: more fun!) projects.  I won’t deprive myself of these things entirely, but chores will come first.  I hope that a little bit each day will make a big difference.

5)     Blog every day.  This won’t translate to a post a day.  But I want some practice writing everyday – for the good of my own soul.  Maybe one day it’ll translate into something good for our bank account too.  That is not the goal this year, but if I want to attain that goal some day, I have to start with a little bit each day.

This is mostly a post about me, and I apologize for how "me" orientated it is.  Don’t worry, if you are still reading this far, this won't be par for the course.  Please feel free to share in the comments your own New Year's Resolutions.

I wish you perseverance and courage for your own goals, and excitement and joy in the unknowns ahead.  And remember it's about the journey, not the destination.  Here’s to a brand new year,

GT <><

Music & The Church

"Why are they changing this again?" seems to be a common cry from parishioners at catholic communities in our area. What strikes me as odd is - people don't have a problem when something's changed to suit their capriciousness, but when someone in authority (priest, archbishop, the Vatican, etc) gently corrects them, everyone finds the time to grumble about changes. Especially evident when local churches are making changes consistent with our time. For example, in the 70's so much music was "updated" to feel more relevant and in synch with parishioners and their life experiences. Was delighted to see this article from an acclaimed, present day composer. It's tempting to think we are doing something "new". The church has been here 2000 years, and she's like a mother with over a billion children - likelihood of modern changes being "new" to the Church is relatively low.

Pray diligently for all God's children,
GT <><

And lines, they are a movin'

After a long hiatus, a CNN article peaked my attention.

Here's an article dealing with ethical and health issues surrounding IVF embryos that are unused, but not unwanted. The concerns and emotions parents have regarding their stored embryos make me believe the line for when life begins may be a movin' during our day and age.

Also seen on CNN, Kourtney Kardashian highlights the delicate dance going on in many young minds today regarding decisions of life (and, let's say it, death). I must believe that the regrets Kourtney points to is the natural law whispering to one's conscience as we weigh life and death decisions in our minds. The line regarding "when does life begin? how are those few cells life?" is so blurred in our times. It is encouraging to see young women like Ms. Kardashian heartily yearn to do what is right with with the life entrusted to her - not just with her own life. So many people ascribe to "well, I wouldn't do it, but I don't want to tell other people not to do it" (key: "it" rhymes with smahshmorshin - credit to "Knocked Up"). But her struggle over the decision and the subtle tugging of her heart (perhaps conscience?) to keep the baby gives hope that perhaps the line is becoming less blurred. There is hope that this generation will realize that natural law dramatically affects the hearts and minds of all people.

According to natural law, the lines of life and death cannot be moved. But the way we perceive them has been moved. Abbreviation: It's a PR game! But there is hope that more and more people are in touch with the hardwired realities within themselves.

See ya at the line,

GT <><

Can't wait to see the Superbowl?

The first time I watched the Superbowl was in 2001, my senior year of high school. The Superbowl was an excuse for me to meet up with my boyfriend on a Sunday, but it was also an entertaining party. Do I remember the commercials? No, but probably because I was paying more attention to the people and the food than to the commercials. I love food...oh and I married my boyfriend.

If you do plan to watch the Superbowl ads this year, do me a favor and keep a tally of how many ads are NOT for products, but for ideas. As a subset, we could also tally how many times potentially controversial or political ads are run. Please write it in the comments to this post. If I thought that I could make it through all the commercials without having to run around after kiddies - well, let's just say, betting on the game is one thing, but betting on those odds is not a good idea.

Also, would love to hear comments on this article about a commercial you will not see in the Superbowl this weekend.

Cheer on,
GT <><

Election Day - Get Informed - Go Vote

Haven't had time to post on the amazing craziness surrounding the elections - partially due to kids and school - partially due to the overwhelming amount of confusion from all different directions regarding the elections. I honestly "gave up" a little because it was emotional overload. And, I am learning that I need to keep my eye on bigger truths than what's constantly happening in politics. It's important to be a responsible citizen - i.e. get informed and GO VOTE! But it's also not the answer to everything worth seeking.

Couldn't pass up this article that the hubby sent. For all of you that are certain of Obama's victory, here's some food for thought from "toast" by Sean Malstrom (link to follow):

I am not running for President. You, the gentle reader, are not running for President. The only two people who are running for President, Obama and McCain, are going to states and sending advertising money to other states that don’t even match the public polls. For example, Pennslyvania is colored a ‘dark blue’, yet both Obama and McCain are visiting the state. ‘Dark blue’ or ‘light blue’ is the color of Iowa, yet both Obama and McCain are there. Many polls say that Georgia is a ‘toss-up’, yet neither Obama or McCain are visiting that state. Since the only two people running for President are performing actions entirely differently than the public polling, one can either say that the presidential candidates are just running around states randomly and are dumb, or it is the possibility that the public polling is not accurate.

I told my husband to stop listening and reading about polls two weeks ago - personally, they make me crazy because they are trying to predict the future - which we all know is just an educated guess. With the polling data being all over the place and Gallop having three different formulas for obtaining data, you'd think people would get the idea that this year in particular the pollsters are not even confident they are close to the mark. In addition, I firmly believe what Malstrom explains in more detail, that polls are a product being sold to an audience too. If you know the answer people want to hear, it's easier to sell the product. Same goes for exit polling, unfortunately. People can sense when their choice is undesired by those asking the questions and have been known to change their answers or decline to particpate. Those are two reasons why exit polls sometimes don't match election resuls.

For more information on how the so-called impossible might be possible, check out the full post.

Part of the product these polls and the media are selling (I think), is that people will "buy in" to their results. I think this product is going to add to the anger people will feel if the result of the election is different than predicted. Great, let's get a divided country even more hostile toward each other.

The polls and the media can cause even more division by calling states before the votes are counted (quoted from the same post as above):

In 2004, the media wisely delayed calling states when voting hadn’t been completed (such as Florida in 2000). There will be none of that delay in 2008. I suspect we will have many states called for Obama before the voting is even done. The state that will be erroneously called for Obama will be Pennslyvania. In Pennslyvania, all the Obama votes are mostly in the Philly and Pittsburg area and Obama will comfortably carry those areas. And those areas are the eastern part of Pennslyvania with the western part being more rural. With the ‘Obama leads’ that Philly and Pittsburg area comes in, and the myth that Obama is ahead 25 points (or whatever) in PA being believed by the anchors, they will call PA early. But once all the rest of the state votes, they will have to turn it into a toss-up. They will be EXTREMELY reluctant to call the state for McCain even when the votes clearly show he has won there (and he *will* win there.)"

I know there will be many people very upset if Obama does not come out the victor in this long, serious race. There are many divisions in this country that face the new president, and we each of probably felt that friction personally. If McCain wins, I believe there are people out there who will have such sour grapes that they will do everything to misrepresent and devalue his efforts to heal old wounds and the successes he will have as president (exhibit A: Bush after 2004). The bickering and complaining will create more and more divisions. So regardless of who wins, can we agree to be civil to each other, to pick up the broken pieces of our country, and to work together?

And remember, the enthusiasm behind a vote does not change how much it is weighted. The opinions heard most loudly in the media and out in public do not eliminate the need for the actual election. These factors are not an infringement on free speech, but rather a degree of intimidation that can also disenfranchise voters - or at the very least, change their responses in polls.

Just some thoughts for the day. I hope you have a good one, and regardless of the weather - make informed decisions and VOTE!

GT <><