I stepped into the arena. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. But I took some pot shots at Immanuel Kant in the process, so it’s worth it.
Read my latest article, Popular fiction and the Catholic Literary Renaissance, over at Catholic World Report.
This is 40. Happy birthday to me.
1. Forty feels like twenty-five, but with creaky, achy hip joints.
2. I used to think that turning forty would come with guru rights, that I would have accumulated a sufficient store of wisdom and would finally be old enough for people to take me seriously. Still waiting on my Guru Card to arrive…maybe it’s lost in the mail…can’t trust USPS these days…
3. I suppose now would be a good time to start living memento mori.
4. Does every forty-year-old drink two pots of coffee a day?
5. My skin and hair are starting to go the way of all flesh. My blonde hair hides grey strands well, and its coarse thickness hides the thinning spots. But my wrinkles and creases are far more obvious. Thank you, bad English genes.
6. I’ve come to realize that I will never read all the books on our bookshelves. I’m okay with that.
7. Corollary: Neither do I need to read to impress other people, though sometimes I still think I do.
8. “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity…”
9. I just discovered and opened my birthday card from my husband and parents. They are gifting me a writing retreat. I may have teared up. Thanks, hon. Thanks, Mom and Dad.
10. Breakfast conversations: I brought up the loss of youth. My husband countered with the observation that I’m now coming into my own.
11. I married a good man.
12. I’ve been giving some thought to continuing education. I’m not exactly twiddling my thumbs here; between writing, editing, and parenting, going back to school would be impossible at present. Yet I wonder if I would benefit from more formal instruction. And if so, in what? Reread the Great Books? (My alma mater, St. John’s, is now offering their masters program online.) Pursue an MFA? Professional editing? Take some undergraduate history classes on Hope College’s dime? (Thank you, faculty benefits.)
13. Conversely, would school be a prime example of Resistance, per Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art?
14. My childhood: LPs and cassettes, Carebears, Rainbow Brite, the Smurfs, Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt, the Babysitters Club, Coke bottle glasses, crying every time a boy teased me with, “Help Me, Rhonda.”
15. My middle school years: soccer sandals and scrunched-up crew socks, Hootie and the Blowfish, feeling awkward.
16. My high school years: the INTERNET (!), flared jeans, thick-soled shoes, First Church of God youth group, The Depot Cafe, high school newspaper, AP History, Jane Austen, “Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think?,” track and field, Dawson’s Creek, feeling awkward.
17. My college years: Great Books, discovering that I never learned how to read, waltz parties, prodigal daughter come home.
18. Not to start an argument, but…Gen Y is the best generation.
19. My cousin, who is six weeks younger than me, already has two grandchildren.
20. Letting that sink in…
21. The older I grow, the less birthdays are about me. The person who comes first to mind is my mother. I was a ten-pound baby with a big head. She is five foot two. I nearly killed her.
22. Speaking of…
23. To NFP or not to NFP, that is the question. THIS IS MY LAST SHOT, PEOPLE.
24. Is it a question?
25. Apparently?
26. #Problems
27. “‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear evil men but have tested those who call themselves apostles but are not, and found them to be false; I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first…’” (Rev. 2:2-4).
28. Until the last decade, my parents struggled to make ends meet. My mother-in-law worked three jobs. My husband and I own a small-but-lovely old home, two vehicles in good shape, and we have an emergency fund. We aren’t living the high life, but neither do we lack for anything. Our children do not know what financial struggle looks like. In its stead, I pray we teach them simplicity, frugality, and generosity.
29. If I never eat canned vegetables again, I will die a happy woman.
30. I’ve misplaced (lost?) my ability to enjoy movies. The medium overwhelms me—too intense a sensory experience, too taxing to my imagination. My brain can hold only so many stories at one time. Between the books I’m writing, the books I’m editing, the books I’m acquiring, and the books I’m reading, I’ve reached the point of gluttony. Anything else and I might vomit.
31. My ADHD has gotten worse with age.
32. I like hugs from my babes.
33. I also enjoy coffee talk (Kawfee Tawk) with my friends.
34. I used to be an excellent housekeeper. Now, I’m lucky that things are sanitary. My five children are expert house destroyers, and I have more important things to do than clean up after them.
35. After sixteen years of marriage, I’ve almost learned how to disagree with my husband and be okay with it.
36. Almost.
37. I may buy a hat—a real hat, a churchgoing hat. Why? Because I’m forty and I can do things like wear hats, if I so please. Who’s going to stop me?
38. A straw cloche to start? A 1920s/30s-style hat would complement my bobbed hair.
39. Maybe I’ll buy some vintage-inspired shoes to match. Again, who’s going to stop me? Current fashion dictates I pull my high school wardrobe out of storage… been there, done that, no desire to go back. Embracing middle-age with middle-aged style!
40. Raising my coffee cup to forty blessed years. Here’s to many more.
Introducing Molly Mouse - a mouse version of my book’s heroine. My friend made the clothes following the pattern from the American Duchess Guide to 18th Century Dressmaking. She even made a false rump!!!
Molly Mouse is a gift for my youngest, as it’ll be many, many years before she can read Mama’s book.
What makes a story Catholic or Christian?
Beneath the surface answers (the positive portrayal of faith, the assertion of a moral universe), we find another one:
Hope.
Against a world-weary culture, Christians dare to hope. This hope changes the tenor of a story. Christians still write redemption arcs. (How naïf!) And when Christians write a tragedy, the story is told against the backdrop of God—overtly or subtly, He’s there, whether or not the characters embrace Him.
Matters of content, genre, form, artistry, and audience aside—and we can debate these points until we’re blue in the face—a novel is Catholic or Christian insofar as our crazy, childlike hope in a Redeemer makes its way into the fabric of the story.
Hope.
Wonder.
Credo.
This flies in the face of contemporary fiction and Western culture. Consider these words of Cardinal Sarah:
Saint Thomas Aquinas says that the major remedy for acedia is not in us but in God. It is the Incarnation, the coming of God in our flesh. Indeed, since heaven seems so far away and we can grow tired in our search for God, he himself came to meet us so as to facilitate our desire to love him, so as to make tangible the good that he offers us. In this sense, I think that the feast of Christmas is the moment when it is easiest to fight against acedia. In contemplating the manger and the Infant Jesus, who makes himself so close, our hearts cannot remain indifferent, sad, or disgusted. Our hearts open and warm up. The Christmas carols and the customs that surround this feast are imbued with the simply joy of being saved…
The West sometimes resembles an embittered old man. It lacks the candor of a child. Spiritually, the continents that came to know the Good News more recently are still astonished and enchanted by the beauties of God, the marvels of his action in us. The West is perhaps too accustomed to it. It no longer shivers with joy before the manger scene; it no longer weeps with gratitude before the Cross; it no longer trembles in amazement before the Blessed Sacrament. I think that men need to be astonished in order to adore, to praise, to thank this God who is so good and so great. Wisdom begins with wonder, Socrates said. The inability to wonder is the sign of a civilization that is dying.
— Robert Cardinal Sarah, "Acedia and the Identity Crisis,” The Day is Now Far Spent, pp. 126-7
The world is drowning in acedia. This is why Hallmark Christmas movies are so dang popular—people are trying to recapture the wonder. This is why most literary fiction remains unread, outside of a chosen few—people do not have the stomach for any more darkness. Or, at least, they do not have the stomach for darkness without redemption.
Mac Problems: Planned obsolescence. My hand-me-down laptop was already too old for Catalina, let alone Big Sur. It's still running High Sierra. 🐢
Novelist Problems: I'm in the middle of round one edits and Word keeps crashing. Presumably because of said OSX issues. 😱
Mom Problems: I have an iMac that I use for graphic design work (also too old to upgrade to Big Sur), but I can't use it because my fifteen-month-old climbs furniture (bye-bye, desk), whacks the keyboard, and pulls the cord out of the back of the computer. 😱
COVID Problems: I have no place to move the desk. Everyone's working and schooling from home. Seven people in a lovely but modest-sized home? We've run out of space.
But...
Though I was hoping to hold off on a new computer for a few more years, I knew this business purchase needed to happen. And we have savings.
You win, Apple. Take my money.
