The word for the year...

On Facebook, my friend Julie, of Bravewriter, has taken up that idea of a word (theme, motto) for the year.

We choose our word for the year, we keep it close, it's a prompt, a reminder, something or someone to which we aspire.

But Julie has taken that idea one step further.

She has decided to, perhaps, post daily updates on her word and this her life. Daily updates on Facebook.

Julie's word is conscientious.

Mine is calm.

In the spirit of calm what did I do today?

Prayed at Mass, a reverent Mass, Benediction, Latin, a homily reminding us that yes, sin exists and yes, choices matter.

Mass and praying the Divine Office helped my inner calm.

As did being on holiday. Hanging out with family and a friend. And keeping my To Do list to a minimum.

Yes, I keep a To Do list on holiday.

I don't know how not to!

A word for 2012

We do not put our faith in empty phrases, we are not carried off by sudden impulses of the heart, we are not seduced by plausible and eloquent speech, - but we do not refuse belief to words spoken by divine power. ( from the Treatisr of St Hipppolytus )

Words. Not empty words. But  words for the year.

Each year I choose a word, a theme, for the year. Something to which I aspire..

I write it in my diary.

I try to live life on purpose.

And many times I fail...

The last two years a group of us have met, between Christmas Day and New Years Eve, to share our year. To share our laughter. Our jokes. Our stresses. Our shallow words in jest...the not so serious fun themes...and our serious words and thoughts for the year.

Mine for 2012?

Calm.

Not boring calm.

Not even serenity .

But an inner calm.

These words are not like resolutions, often far fetched, often with action plans. They are words pure and simple. Little guides or prompts.

What will prompt you this coming year?

Here comes November!

As the October Challenge draws to a close, I have planned and begun my November Challenge. By default.

Jillian Michaels.

Namely, Ripped in 30 and 30 Day Shred. Chosen because the mix of intervals, of cardio and strength and abs usually give me good results in a short amount of time. Healthwise.

Often tough but effective and good to push one self without the exhaustion of hour long pushing.

Those of you who workout will understand.

And I am planning on revisiting some old favourites for the eating part of the challenge.. Old favorite books that is. Secrets of a Former Fat Girl, The Do-able Diet,  The Lazy Girl's Guide to Dieting, Calorie Queens.

What is the common thread in these books? All written by women who used to be overweight. That been there done that thing.

"You don't have to be perfect, you just have to bring it." To quote Jillian from today's workout, workout one of the Ripped in 30  workout DVD.

Good advice!

Dead people as friends...St Teresa of Avila

"The highest perfection consists not in interior favours or in great rapture, but in bringing of our wills so closely into conformity with the will of God that as soon as we realize that He wills anything, we desire it ourselves with all our might."

St Teresa is one of my "mentor" saints. I read her writings, I look to her for inspiration.

She is my friend.

Yes, dead people as friends...read my post here.

I think St Teresa may be horrified at parts of who I am, a modern techi-devoted, Singstar and workout devoted,  working and homeschooling, wife and mother...but I like to think we would share the same sense of humour, sense of duty, love for our Faith, love for God.

And so we cooked a Spanish flavoured dinner for St Teresa's feast day, October 12. I shared the recipes in my regular food- for -the -liturgical -year "column" on the Australian Catholic Families blog.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote that St Teresa had a " a profound and articulate spirituality" and reminds us to emulate St Teresa, in  seeking God's friendship every day, in prayer...for time spent in prayer is not time wasted. ( Blog of the MI Australia).

A Fitness Challenge

Fat and frumpy. Old and ugly.

You know those things we say to ourselves.

It's that self loathing. And for many women it began in their teen years.

For me, it began in my childhood. But that's a whole other story.

As Ajay Rochester says in her 5 Minute Diet Book, starting from a point of self disgust is not helpful.

Instead, we should begin a new fitness venture from a point of being positive... Affirmations if need be. Self control over negative thoughts. Choosing workouts that make us smile.

Lately I have been doing more walking and jogging workouts.Outside. Or inside... Leslie Sansone being some of these workouts.

Leslie is bubbly, chatty, positive. I can pray while walking or jogging, otherwise mindless workouts. ....Hail Mary... Contemplation instead of mindlessness...

And if I am walking, jogging, doing upper body strength training in my family room, I can ham it up. Act like a dork. Dance. Sing. Who is to see or care?

Leslie has an October walking and jogging challenge beginning on Monday. To overcome these I-hate-me feelings I am taking the challenge. Setting a plan for x number of kilometres.

And looking at my chaotic eating habits... Yes, my life means I tend to be chaotic in eating. As described in Intuitive Eating..." The Chaotic Unconscious Eater often lives an over scheduled life, too busy, too many things to do. The chaotic eating style is haphazard; whatever's available will be grabbed....nutrition and diet are often important to this person...just not at the critical point of the chaos. Chaotic eaters are so busy putting out fires ( in my case doing all that I need to do and working two jobs and homeschooling and trying to eat what's on hand to save money..) they have difficulty recognizing biological hunger until it's fiercely ravenous. Not surprisingly, the Chaotic Eater often goes long periods of time without eating."

Mmm. Me to a tee.

So my October fitness challenge is to hate myself a little bit less ( son Thomas always says to me, Mum you are worse than my friends, girls my age, about hating your looks and body! ...yep, that's me..), to walk and jog perhaps with Leslie, to structure eating and be more mindful.

I'll report back regularly!

And .....want to join me?

Life with the......

A day in the life of... An answer to those who asked how Unschooling looks for families with teens.

5.44 am Mobile phone alarm beeps. I jump out of bed  to grab the phone and switch off the alarm because  I can't bear the noise and don't want it to wake the family. Then, because it's cold and wet, and because I went to bed at midnight doing work for Kumon, I take my phone back to bed with me for ten minutes. I say a few Hail Marys.

6.05 am Doing a Taebo workout in my room. Time for a half hour workout today... Total Body Blast, kickboxing and light weights. Go Billy Blanks!

6.40 am Getting dressed for work at OOSH. I lay my uniform and jeans and Converse  out the night
before so I don't have to think in the morning. Because I took those ten minutes in bed there is no time now to wash and dry my hair so I put it in pigtails.

6.50 am Leave  for work... Running a bit late.

7.00-9.30 am Work as a co-ordinator at an out of school hours care centre. Set up dominoes and tristar games and pet portraits, chat to children and parents and staff, do paperwork, plan afternoon activities.

While at home, builders arrive to fix the termite damage in our rental home. Jonathon and Alexander in Madrid for WYD (lucky things!) and Greg is home for a week before going to the US for postulancy and novitiate. So Greg, Anthony, Thomas get up, workout, tidy, talk, pray, breakfast, computer, errands

9.40 am Home from work, talk to a Kumon parent on the phone, say hi to builders and sons, check email on my phone. Anthony makes a pot of tea and we try to find a quiet builder free area to talk. Can Anthony's friend come over? Will Greg proofread Anny's report on Sir Robert Menzies? We all talk, look up movies online, go on Facebook, Thomas writes a blogpost.Anthony puts on a load of laundry and we laugh at how much less washing we have with two away.

About that report. A couple of weeks back it came to me that we were inadvertently studying Australian history this year ( see my post on Inadvertent Homeschooling). With trips and outings and books that came our way. So I suggested to Anthony that he write a report on a famous person in Australian history.. And this he finished yesterday.

About that blog post. A long discussion in Melbourne , about writing and commitment and self discipline and a friend's blog, encouraged
Thomas'  blog, Life as a student.

10.10 I go to finally wash that hair, reading a bit of Merton's Seven Storey Mountain  ( that modern spiritual classic) and the beginning of Run Your Butt Off (an introduction to running as a workout and sport) on the way. Anthony and Greg play a video game with Anthony's friend , David. Then David and Anthony play some piano.

10,55 Say goodbye to the builders... They should be finished this weekend and painters in next week! Yay! Kids drop me off to my eye specialist appointment and they head off to the shopping mall. In the waiting room I start to blog, watch the news, read parts of the aforementioned books. This is my rest! Or at least how I look at it... Not boring waiting time!

I look at my To Do list... Is there anything I can do while in the waiting room? I pray the prayer on the holy card I use as a bookmark.

I download some songs on ITunes and field another call from a Kumon parent. While the boys visit the shops and library.

Does it seem like I am filling in time??

I pray for the pilgrims in Madrid.. That plenary indulgence you know!

1.20  pm Finally texting Greg to pick me up... Waited two hours for a six minute consult!

1.49 At the food court for lunch. Lentil beetroot fetta salad! Anthony and his friend play with Bucky Balls, beads with which they make creations. Greg goes to the orthodontist and Thomas to work as an assistant at a nearby Kumon centre. I talk, text, catch up on email. With a skim chai latte!

2.53 pm Rushing to work, late again. Anthony with his friend David at home, playing games and music and reading. Greg will take Anthony to piano lessons at 5pm while I plan indoor activities for the kids at OOSH on this rainy, windy day.

6.05 Walking in the rain, waiting for my lift home from work. Then we leave a car for Thomas at his work, so he can drive to youth group in our parish after work. Home to say hi to dh, home early from work interstate in Canberra. Anthony tells me about music lessons. Builders have finished and gone! I dry my hair and we go to mass in our parish and Anthony then to meet Thomas at youth group.

We talk about St Louis of Anjou, the first Franciscan bishop. And hear from our pilgrims in Spain... It's amazing!

I get to pray the Morning and Evening prayers of the Office before and after mass ( yay! But hangs head in shame re catch up). Then home to pick up dh ... Just we three, Gerry, Greg and I for dinner, some time to chat before Greg goes away.

Where shall we eat?

8.44 At a local Thai restaurant. Thomas and Anny still at youth group. Hearing all about WYD from pilgrims and about studies in the US from Greg.

9.48 Meet T and A at McDonalds for coffee and chat about youth group. Still cold. Pouring rain.

Discuss tomorrow's plans.

Discuss items in the newspaper.

And talk about writing. And blogs. And personal culpability. And mental health problems.

10.48 pm Home . Very , very cold. Anthony does more laundry. I tidy up. We pray and get ready for bed. I make a To Do list for tomorrow, adding the many things I didn't do today.

An early night.. We were going to watch an episode of Numbers (Maths and crime!) but we are oh so tired  after a busy week... So bed and reading for us all ( and blogging for me!)

Fitness. Highs. Lows.

Fitness Highs and Lows

July Highs

1. Did copious weights workouts. Kelley Coffey-Myers 30 Minutes to Fitness Weights and Jari Love's Get Extremely Ripped, split onto the two thirty minute workouts. When work is busy and I am short of time...I need thirty minute workouts. But tough, effective ones. These two are great, especially for biceps and pecs and both are active so get your heart rate up for a cardio effect (think Body Pump classes).

2. Read some stuff on the whys of eating....parts of the Don't Go Hungry For Life book, parts of Losing It In France, parts of Intuitve Eating.

What is intuitive eating?

"It is free of obsession. It acknowledges that our compulsions are due to biochemical or emotional reasons and any over- or under-eating is a clue to begin looking further as an opportunity for learning."

3. I went to a dinner dance on Saturday night and I ate all three courses but only half of everything...it's okay, others at the table liked my leftovers! Half my pumpkin soup, half the fish and vegetables, half the caramel apple tart. And practiced some moderation with alcohol! Woo hoo!

July Lows

1. I put on some kilos. Yes, that little, horrible, sneaky weight trip. I realize that for me it's not enough to try to be intuitive, to be honest ....less intuition and more self discipline seem to be the ticket here. I mean, the feel good stuff is good is but I need plans and action. I'm just that kind of person. Hence my moderation at the dinner dance (see above) and my moderation all weekend. Go girl!

2. Not enough cardio. In line with the above, I realized that I need more cardio. Tough love. The last two days I have been doing those walking and jogging workouts, 45 minutes. I kind of like those endorphins and I need that cardio to lose that weight. Your mileage may vary but this works for me. And changing it up.

3. I hate my body. There, I said it. Not following a plan makes me feel fat, and makes me actually fat...those kilos I mentioned above. My skinny jeans fit but I look fat in them. My abs have gone to hell. See what happens when I don't watch what I eat...whereas two days of cardio and A Plan make me feel less fat... Sure I haven't lost weight yet, weight loss is slow for me, I know I am always in this for life and I am not after fast weight loss or a perfect body...but I feel more in control with that sensible eating plan. An "I've got this covered" feeling!

So there you have it. My July fitness post.

I've brushed myself off, thinking positively, dragged out some old mottoes, created some new.

"I've lost 40 kg in the last, a few kgs now won't be hard." No, that one doesn't work anymore. Makes.me feel like a failure.

" I take care of myself." Yes, that's a new one but a good one. A reminder when I want to turn to food.

" What I want most, WIWM." Yep, that still works. I really want to be healthier, look better in my clothes, not avoid the mirror when I'm wearing my skinny jeans or getting dressed.

" It's not an option INO." From Secrets of a Former Fat Girl. And, yes, it's not an option to drop the plan, I'm not like other people who can eat or not eat and not worry. I have a history of eating disorders so their eating and exercise habits are not an option for me.

And - " I don't do that any more." No, I don't. Or I tell myself I don't. Don't eat emotionally, for example. Don't expect perfection. Don't make it too hard or too easy on myself.

I don't.

Do you have any July fitness highs and lows?

Another Fitness Post

Weight: Two kilos gone. Two. In one week. Is there something wrong? Should I worry? Can I not self sabotage? Look out skinny jeans..here I come!

Food Epiphany: 1. Alcohol can fit into a calorie controlled diet. Just sayin'. In case you were worried.

2. There is an argument for counting calories carefully and not estimating all the time. And for not eating too little...duh, Leonie! Avoiding the eating too few calories trap has taken me awhile. See Calorie Queens .

General: Good quote..."After decades in this field, I can honestly say that most, if not all, of the disordered eaters I have known or worked with are excellent caretakers of others and poor caretakers of themselves." The Rules of Normal Eating.

Fitness: Battling a cough and cold and this is reflected in workouts.

Sat: The FIRM Cardio Workout with the accompanying weighted gloves. A kickboxing inspired workout with some nice plank work for abs at the end. Pulls a lot of punches (pun intended!) in twenty minutes.

Sun: Dance With Julianne. A sweaty dance workout, really works your abs and makes you feel like you are dancing in a music clip. Contemporary. Forty minutes. Intermediate level. Good workout, choreographed by Jen Galardi, a fave dance fitness instructor of mine. Julianne looks a bit like a Barbie doll and over uses the word sexy and with my headache I could not, would not, shake my head and hair as she did...but the cardio was fun and my body was worked.

Mon: Leslie Sansone Walk Away Your Waistline. Gosh, I chose this because Monday was not a good day for me and I needed a mindless workout. But I loved the ab belt. You really suck in your abs and the weighted handles provide some upper body toning when you do the arm movements while walking with Leslie and her "pals." 3 miles 45 minutes.

Tues: Too much coughing. Too busy. No workout. Grr. I hate giving in.

Wed: Today. The other twenty minute FIRM Ignite workout ( see last week). I've done this before, but it was harder today...that cough and cold! Major coughing fit after but it was too cool a workout to ignore. Cardio, then cardio bursts with intervals of weights, followed by cardio and an ab toning cool down/stretch. Burpees with weighted squats!

Okay,that's fitness today in a nut shell. For those of you who asked...you know who you are, my fellow fitness friends..

Fitness today

Fitness today

Workout: The FIRM Ignite Calorie Burn

Food epiphany: 1. Sometimes I can eat calorie controlled junk instead of dinner. Really. No guilt.

2 it's good to eat breakfast ( muesli and low fat yogurt) even if it's at 10,30 am.

3. From Nice Girls Finish Fat - one doesn't always have to be perfect, do everything well.

General: I lost over a kg this week. With cardio ( mostly Just Sweat), calorie awareness and mindfulness.

The FIRM Ignite workout is two workouts, each roughly twenty minutes. You can do one or both workouts and , to my mind, are the FIRM's answer to the very popular Jillian Michaels' twenty minute workouts. High intensity cardio bursts with strength training intervals.

I like these workouts. The two instructors, Emily and Rebekah, are encouraging. Since the strength training is not done at lightening speed, I can actually go a bit heavier than I can with Jillian. I used 3 kgs.

There are cardio bursts, each athletic and each eight seconds. Four in a row, with twelve second recovery moves in between, before the next strength training or cardio or standing abs.

Today I fell flat on my face, doing the big boy push ups and tricep kickbacks with weights, in Rebekah's Interval Blast The workout fairy must have had a good laugh!

And the morning glories, with bicep curl and overhead press...well let's just say a core and balance challenge for this mum of seven!

I'd rate the workouts high intermediate or low advanced. Not killer. But good. One could make it easier with low impact and lighter weights. Or harder with even more energy and heavier weights.

And twenty minutes on time challenged days is super...good calorie burn intervals equal the burn of slower, steady rate cardio.

And fun! The fun factor, you know, is pretty important to me.

So, another fitness post! Check in next week for an update....

A fitness post

Be strong.

Be fit.

Have fun.

Lose weight.

Billy Blanks' Taebo motto.

I haven't had a fitness post in awhile. But I'm still working out. And wanting to lose a few kgs

But how? As someone who lost almost 40kg over a five year period, I know the ins and the outs, the ups and the downs, of weight loss. Of weight maintenance .

I am chubby. I don't think I will ever be slim. There was a period just after my weight loss when I was sick and I lost even more weight.. And people at church said I looked fantastic. Maybe I did. I wasn't eating but I was working out hard.

But I can't continue that in my normal life. Well, not at the present. So I am at a normal weight for me now. Not a fantastic looking weight.

However, I would like to lose a few kgs. Not to be at that fantastic looking hard for me to maintain weight . But to be healthier. To not cringe quite so much, when I look at myself.

And to work on that emotional eating.

Because one day recently I not only felt strong emotions but I expressed them. And as soon as I did I knew I needed to eat. Eat something fattening. To help with feeling and expressing those strong emotions.

I wanted pasta but settled for fish and chips. Too much fish and chips.

Mmmm

I know I eat to deal with emotions but I do it anyway. ( At least it's a big step up from not knowing why I eat)

Nice Girls Finish Fat. A book I have owned for awhile but that I couldn't let myself get into. Because I like being nice. And what would happen if I wasn't?

I read a section and thought, well, maybe I can set limits and boundaries. For myself. And others.

For example, I can make The Plan for my continuing workouts and for getting eating on track. I can make food the last thing I turn to when dealing with emotions. I can enjoy the food and alcohol but choose lower calorie versions . I can savour and eat mindfully.

I can put a stop button on myself.

I can blog my weekly exercise and food because maybe others are here, too.

I can pray.

I can risk not always being nice.

I can take who I am as a strong person, a strong woman, and be strong where I am weak. With the strength of prayer . Because Mary, our Mother, was strong, too. And her prayers are strong.

So... Update for this week? I have loved, loved, loved more cardio workouts ... Especially Just Sweat, the workout part to the Wii Just Dance game. And Ellen Barrett's pilates based floorwork. And today a very cool kickboxing work.

And watching my calories. Yet still eating yummy stuff!

And doing that whole mindful thing... Why are you eating?

It's been fun! Especially the cardio workouts. I am a bit addicted to those.

So maybe I will blog on fitness again. Every now and then.

We are what we eat. And do. And think.

That's living without school.

Strewing the month of May

The month of May is dedicated to Our Lady, Our Blessed Mother, Mary.

I often seem to be the antithesis of the qualities ascribed to Mary...the antithesis of holy, gentle, loving.

Yet I take hope in her intercession for me, her love for me. That I will act as I am called.

Mary's prayers for her children are powerful indeed.

For...Mary was raised to the dignity of Mother of God rather for sinners than for the just, since Jesus Christ declares that he came to call not the just, but sinners. -- St. Anselm

Here is one of our table displays for the month of May. How comforting to come downstairs and have this greet me, of a morning. To have this greet the family, as they, too, wander downstairs, half awake.

Don't talk to us in the morning. If you can help it. We are not really morning people. Let us just be. Let us just gaze. At our current unschooling strewing.

An icon of Our Lady.

All my own perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded upon Our Lady.
-J.R.R. Tolkien

Mary as mother is an unschooling wife and mother's hope. We place our hope, our trust, our motherly and wifely worries in her care...and we know she will intercede for us to Christ, her son, Our Lord.

So perhaps as we look at unschooling strewing, so perhaps we can strew Mary in the month of May... icons, prayers, consecration, the Rosary, quotes from the saints and from the Catechism, books.

Our lives, dedicated to our Blessed Mother and her Son, to our families.

The measure of unschooling is, in part, us...who we are speaks volumes to our family... and our children become snapshots of their life with us. Of their unschooling, learn-and-live-and-share lives.

Yes. As we follow Mary today so we show Christ to our family.

The reason why Christ is unknown today is because His Mother is unknown. Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman

Hermione Granger on retreat?

So what does will your retreat schedule look like? ..asked my non Catholic friend.

Here is a day.

7.30 am Divine Office of Matins and Lauds
8.00.     Breakfast
9.15.     Conference then Offices of Prime and Terce
10.45.    Mass in the Extraordinary Form
12.30 pm Lunch
4.30.      Confession
5.00.      Sermon and Divine Offices of Sext and None then the Angelus
6.00.      Dinner
7.15.      Vespers, Holy Hour, private prayer, confession, Benediction
8.45.      Compline

And we observe the rule of silence. 

"Wisdom enters through love, silence, and mortification . It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others," St John of the Cross

Time to pray, rest, walk, read, think, reflect, connect and write. Because it is in writing that I think and reflect.

And we are praying through and working through some of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola.

Yes, even me, the  "late" retreatant.

"Each one must probe the depths of his heart to feel what it is that prevents him from finding God in peace - that is from going straight to Him and cleaving wholly to Him." The spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius...The Three Classes of Man.

And I am resisting the urge to bring my To Do List Mentality to this retreat. Because  it is so easy for me to plan my time and my prayer and my walk/exercise and my spiritual journaling and my good resolutions, and write them in my book, and cross off what I have "achieved"... When what I really want to do is listen to Our Lord. That interior mortification.

High achiever, list oriented, organized Hermione Granger twin meets God. On His terms. Not hers.

Should mothers go on retreat?

I posed this question on Facebook, in a whirlwind of trying-to-get-to-a-retreat myself.

A retreat, a silent retreat, a time away for prayer, for reflection, for adoration of Our Lord. Time to be, simply be. With God. Mindfully. Fully present. To pray, think, write.

But, oh the many, many things a mother must organize, before she even begins the hour drive to the retreat centre. Cars, errands, appointments, phone calls, bills, work, extra work, work meetings, teach Catechism, listen to a friend, work emails, listen to a son read his religion paper, the one he wrote for Homeschool study today, talk about  uni assignments and times, chauffeur, sort who is taking Anny to music and who is doing junk mail delivery and who will be home when and will the homeschool son be alone and who needs what car and what about laundry and meals and Kumon and OOSH and ready cash and objections and did you pay the car rego and the rent before you left for the retreat and make sure you pray for this intention, okay?

Those little details in a mother's life.

Should mothers go on retreat, with all the work needed just, simply,  for two days away?

Reflecting tonight after vespers and compline, feeling some of that tension  and tiredness releasing, being in the quiet presence of Our Lord (Be still, and know that I am God)...I thought...yes.


There are contradictions and mysteries in a mother's life, in a woman's life.

God, Himself, is one of those mysteries .

As the author writes in one of my " retreat reading books"....("The Orthodox Way")... God cannot be grasped by the mind.If he could be grasped, he would not be God. (Evagarius of Pontas). Metanoia, the Greek word for repentance, means, literally, change of mind . In approaching God, we are to change our mind,  stripping ourselves of all our habitual ways of thinking. We are to be converted not only in our will but in our intellect. We need to reverse our interior perspective, to stand the pyramid on it's head.

And that is why mothers should go on retreat. No matter how difficult it is to actually get there.

Personal devotion or public liturgy

The liturgy of the Church is her public act of worship, her prayers, Holy Mass, the sacraments, the Divine Office.

The liturgy of the Church is something in which the whole Christ participates ( to paraphrase the CCC). The whole Christ...Christ, the Head, with His Body, the Church in heaven and earth.

So, we pray at mass , in the liturgy of the Church, as a whole, together. Yet we also have our personal prayer, our devotional life within and outside the public liturgy,

We concentrate on God and praying with our neighbour; conversely we contemplate Our Lord, personally, with private devotion.

Is there tension between the two? Can we become so entwined in personal devotion that we forget our active participation in the public liturgy of the Church? Or can we be so caught up with community and praying with each other...that we neglect our interior preparation?

Our personal devotions should lead us to the liturgy...and vice verse. No tension. But we are not that lone sinner in the pew..we are part of the Church, gathered to pray. And that knowledge has to affect our participation in Holy Mass, for example. Without making Mass itself all about social interaction.

My participation in Holy Mass, tonight, was not a personal devotion. I was an active participant in the Holy Sacrifice. And my private devotions, preparation, reflection, help my active participation in the prayers , with others, in the mass and St Anthony novena.

No tension. But something good on which to reflect..the role of and relationship between personal devotion and liturgy.

You wore a mantilla to mass?

Well, yes, tonight I did. A veil. Head covering.

I used to wear a mantilla to mass more often than not.

And then I stopped. For a variety of reasons.

I wear a mantilla nowadays every now and then.

Tonight was a then.

Candlemas. Mass in the Extraordinary Form. And as I climbed out of the car, late, rushed from work, sweating unladylike in the heat, wearing a short skirt and pink pigtails...well, in that one second something nudged me and I reached into the glovebox of the car and grabbed my black mantilla.

Wearing the mantilla in mass reminded me of why I used to enjoy the wearing of the mantilla....I felt like my eyes were forced to concentrate on Our Lord, on Holy Mass...and not on shoes ( my far too often mass preoccupation) ..

Another case of those externals helping the internal..the internal disposition to prayer.

Of course, who knows when I will wear a mantilla again. God forbid that I become a mantilla policeman, making rules for myself, sticks with which to beat myself.

But the mantilla was a reminder, an encouragement tonight.

Sometimes, I deal with sour expressions, usually on other women, when they see me with my veil. I have a method for dealing with this: smile, nod and acknowledge them quietly "hello". The smile you wear underneath the veil goes a long way towards placating those who think the veil is a throwback to some legendary era when women were slaves. Why veil

Today in homeschooling fashion...

I found a lovely blog the other day. A week in pictures . Of long skirts every day. Of how this homeschooler goes about her busy week, looks gorgeous and feminine, and never wears jeans.

Now, I am not a member of the no jeans long skirt homeschooler club. I do wear skirts more than jeans and rarely wear long skirts. And I don't look gorgeous. But I thought it would be fun to do homeschooler mums and clothing posts.

So this is today, clothing for mass, appointments, grocery shopping. And dinner at the beach. On a hot Saturday.

Revisiting Words. Revisiting C.S Lewis

Revisiting words. Words or mottoes or themes for the year.

I've been doing this since the late 1990s. Choosing a word, a phrase, a motto, for the year. In place of New Year's resolutions. To guide. To make me think. To set the tone. For the year. For me. For my life.

Sometimes, the word just comes to me. Like last year's word. Coping.

Sometimes the word(s) need a lot of thought and prayer. Like the year I had People First....I can be task oriented, you know! Or ~ Like A Sunflower.

Explain that one!

Sometimes, too, the word has a special meaning for me at that time, reflecting a current interest or current reading or current experience. Like the year I took one of Billy Blank's ( Taebo workout guy) maxims and made it my own - Every Day Above Ground Is A Blessed Day. And ~Never Give Up. Or a verse from Scripture - "I will walk within my house with a perfect heart."

Before New Years, I went out for coffee with three other homeschool mums. One mum has known me a long time, over the years, through newsletter exchanges and then the internet. We finally met in real life when I moved to Sydney in 2005.

And she asked - "What is your word for the coming year? Do you still do those words?"

The others looked at me quizzically and thus I explained these words. The importance of words in our lives, especially for a booky, writing sort of person like me. The power of words. The influence of words.

And how words can shape our thoughts and thus our lives.

So, yes, I still do those words.

Do they make my life better? Do they make me better? Do they make me a better Christian, wife, mother, worker, homeschooler, friend, person?

I don't know. And, no, not on their own. I can, however, only think of how, perhaps, who I am may be worse, may be the real, yucky inside me, if I didn't have these words to guide me...in prayer...in my life.

I am reminded of C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, where he writes of "Nice People or New Man." We do not know the state of others' souls; we do not know what we are without God so, even if we are not-always-so-nice when we know God, it does not mean that we should give up. That Christianity fails. That we shouldn't strive to be nice. We should. With His Grace. Using tools like my Words. And offering it all in prayer.

"But we must not suppose that even if we succeeded in making everyone nice we should have saved their souls. A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world - and might even be more difficult to save. For mere improvement is not redemption, though redemption always improves people even here and now and will, in the end, improve them to a degree we cannot yet imagine. God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of a man. "

So, those words, chosen in prayer each year, written into my diary each year, offered in prayer each year, help make me nicer. Heaven as a goal, not niceness. But a little bit of niceness goes a long way! That new kind of man, with the grace of God and the help of the sacraments and that word.

That word, the one I see when I open my diary each day and each week and check what-I-have-to-do. What things the family has to do. All under the banner of the word(s) for the year.

So, you ask, what is the word for this year.

I mentioned it in another post.

A name. A phrase. Influenced by my pre-Christmas reading.

Mother Teresa. In other words, dying to self. And serving with a smile. Regardless.

From Mere Christianity again..." But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away blindly so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality: but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self...will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him."

This thought tempers our words, our resolutions, doesn't it? And thus my word for this year is a reminder that it is not really about the words or about me. It is about Him.

Mother Teresa.

And the inspiring words for the year that my homeschooling friends have chosen and shared, over that coffee, also remind me that it is not about us.

Quite liberating.

Contemplation... A New Years Resolution

Is it possible to be both contemplative and go-go-go?

Are they mutually exclusive ?

I tend to have an attraction to contemplative prayer, to be,  in my very imperfect way, with God, in prayer. Being inspired by St Teresa of Avila amongst others. Her "Interior Castle."

My vocation and my personality, however , can seem to be the antithesis of contemplation.

So what do mothers and wives, working mothers , Homeschooling mothers, volunteering wives, we home managers... do? 

In other words, how do we live balanced lives. For life should be lived on a fairly even keel. Yes , I can be a person of highs and lows. That makes life interesting. But there shouldn't be Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde highs and lows. People , our husbands, our children , our friends , our colleagues , our fellow parishioners expect that even keel. That balanced life.

And our spiritual life , our interior life of contemplation, should reflect this. Loving Our Lord and being faithful and then serving with a smile reflects our joy of contemplative prayer . Regardless of current , perhaps passing, emotions. Even regardless of feelings in prayer.

Mother Teresa, in fact. 

(My words or motto for this year. But that's another post)

How do we do this? It has been said of me that I work hard, I play hard, I pray hard.

But to keep that even keel, to serve Our Lord and others, I need the grace of God.

An excellent, inspiring homily that I heard yesterday , in Epiphany-tide , addressed this. Reflecting on the First Letter of St John, on love. If we abide with God, if God abides with us , we should share His grace and love , with love, ourselves.

As Father said , we may not like our neighbour, we do not even have to, but we do have to love him as Christ loves. Perhaps showing this love simply by praying for another.

In a similar fashion , we may not like some of those tasks on a mother and wife's to do list. We can, however , still execute them with love.

Perhaps contemplation in action.

Sometimes in prayer I feel like I  am somewhere else ( a Battlestar Galactica cylon experience for sure ! )

The trick for me to learn is to take that experience of being caught up with Our Lord, that joy, that peace, that lack of tiredness, into all the other spheres of my life .

Except it is not really a trick, is it? It is a knack, a skill, a grace that many mothers and wives possess and develop . Bringing God's love to those around them, in their daily tasks. In that tidying up. In going to work when tired . In offering up that criticism and answering with a smile. Even when , especially when, we don't feel like it . Even when, especially when, we lose that other world feeling in prayer and experience dry toast in our prayer life.

Especially then. 

Ask Mother Teresa.

January is a month of resolutions. Those New Years resolutions. And so, maybe, a mother and wife's resolution can be that even keel, that sharing God's love, that contemplation in action.

I think it is possible . Not on our own strength but with the grace of God. 

I perused self help books  at Borders yesterday. In that effort to balance my life , to be better, to think of my motto or words for the year (think New Years resolutions). Most of the advice was  superficial or anecdotal or, worse , bringing ideas of corporate goals and action plans and strategies into our families and personal lives.

And later, when praying the Evening Office, when thinking about the masses I had prayed at on our holiday , the homilies I had heard, the books I had read on break ( Mother Teresa, celebrating the liturgical year ), I realized that the ultimate self help books for we wives and mothers are our spiritual lives ... Our contemplation in prayer , in the Rosary and in the Divine Office, our experience of God in Holy Mass, our listening and learning, our daily offerings, our reading of the saints, our living the liturgical year.

These can help us reach that even keel, that contemplation , that loving of others.

So maybe contemplation and go-go-go can walk together , in our vocations.

I walk the line...

I walk the line.... Strains of that Johnny Cash song run through my head.

Well, I also have the tune of Lady GaGa's Eh, Eh in my mind ... And Bruno Mars' Juat The Way You Are.

But it's Walk the Line that I want to write about . Because it describes the blogging experience .

I blog to share with family and friends. I blog about our life, as unschoolers, hence the title Living Without School. It is my personal blog. I write of our life , my life , our experiences, my experiences, our interests, my interests.

If you check the 1, 222 ( now 1,223!) blog posts since 2005, you will see a variety of posts on a variety of topics. Reflecting current interests.

In recent times, that interest has been the public liturgy of the Church.

I post our every day stuff, the liturgical year, to friends on Facebook. I tend, since the advent of Facebook, to publish D & M stuff only here on the blog, and daily stuff on Facebook.... D & M as in Deep and Meaningful. For me. As much as I can be deep and meaningful I guess.

And so I walk the line. How much to post? How much of me to share?

But, ultimately, the fact remains that this is my blog.

It is not a public discussion forum. It is not an online debate.

It is, pure and simple, my blog .

You don't have to read it if you don't want to. Or if you don't like the posts. Or my writing style.

Read other blogs if not mine .

It's okay.

I will continue to blog. To share my life without school. To share my interests.

To try to walk the line.

Conscience

At our parish Women's Group tonight, we read Chapter 3 of the First Letter of St John.

One of the Bible translations used the word conscience while others used the word heart....and so we talked about our conscience and thus being right before God.

In the back of my mind, a quote kept nagging at me. From Cardinal Pell, on Blessed Cardinal Newman, on conscience.

I could remember the gist of the message but not the actual words of the quote.

So, I didn't share but instead came home to find that quote. To quiet my nagging mind!

“Anyone in a real life situation that requires moral strength, honesty, and accuracy would surely be repelled by the advice that "morality has nothing to say about the details of your choice; it's all up to you." This is purely abandonment of people when they most need and expect guidance. ...” (Cardinal Pell, Newman and the Drama of True and False Conscience).

Very true. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that our consciences need to be formed. It lists the many ways in which a conscience may be formed and includes the "wise words of others" in the list.

So we do not abandon others to despair, to making poor or ill-informed choices, to repeating mistakes...we share our love ..and the Truth. Perhaps by words. Perhaps by actions. Perhaps simply by the way we live.

We are made free to choose what is right; this is not freedom without constraint but a freedom guided by our conscience.

Thus, a formed conscience is formed in virtues (so we have strength to follow our conscience, to do what is right even if it is hard) and is also formed via learning i.e. learning what is good. “When he listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking.” (CCC 1777)

Our judgment involves our intellect; it is not a feeling and is not based on intuition.

It is based on reason; we say that it is both formed and informed.

Conscience relies on judgment.

When faced with a choice or an action, it is our judgment that tells us the morality of such a choice or action. We, formally or informally, go through stages of judgment as we use our conscience to make a moral decision. We consider the ideals of morality (to do good and not evil); we apply these to our given situation; we make a judgment about the actions or possible actions and finally we choose an action, in accordance with our judgment i.e. in accordance with our conscience.

Conscience has an important role to play in our life.

It guides us, it helps us choose actions that may be morally right or wrong; it helps us reflect on our actions and to feel a sense of guilt when we perceive that an action has been morally incorrect.

“Conscience is a law of mind...Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ. “ Blessed Cardinal Newman

Conscience helps us in our witness and example to others. We show others how to act, what we believe, what is right and what is wrong by our actions borne of our conscience.

“…They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them “ Romans 2:15

Conscience acts as our guide and helps us to act with charity, as an example for others, teaching others, by word and deed, of moral law.

And it is conscience that prevents me from rationalising my sins away; prevents me from putting the blame on the other and stops me from seeing myself as blameless; it is conscience that stops me from falling into self centred sadness ( it's not all about you, dear).

Conscience is my little, inner nagging voice.

My heart.