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Month: May 2011

Huntington 1

Monday 30 May 2011

The beauty of sleeping less than 500 meters from the beach is that no matter how many times one wakes up to the sounds of the forest, including raccoons foraging neighboring camp sites, one simply has to concentrate on the distant sound of waves crashing to fall almost immediately back to sleep. The result is not necessarily a sound sleep, but a pleasant one.

The beauty of sleeping less than 500 meters from the beach is also the after-breakfast walk. A short walk through a forest of pine, itself filled with an early-morning enchantment, and we’re at the beach. The sun reflects off the retreating waves and the low tide yields a treasure of shells for the Girl.

The Girl’s mantra changed during our short time at Huntington Beach State Park. Within twenty-four hours, it went from “When are we going to get there?” to “When are we going to the beach?”

The first day showed just how much the Girl has changed.

Her first beach experience, some two years ago, was moderately traumatic for her. The sound of the waves terrified her, and the waves were forever chasing her form the water’s edge when she finally got the nerve to approach.

This year was different.

She played in the surf. She made a mess of Tata.

She made some new friends.

She saw some wildlife.

It was one of a thousand bittersweet moments: she’s growing up faster than we’d have imagined.

Easter

Sunday 29 May 2011

In Catholicism, Easter is a season, not merely a day. As such, sharing photos from Easter Sunday almost a week later would be perfectly acceptable…

With a Polish priest driving from Columbia to fit Polish Mass into a schedule that includes English and Spanish Masses throughout the day, our Easter was a late Easter,with Mass at 15:00 and the requisite gathering — for what is Easter for Poles but a Thanksgiving with spiritual meaning? — following ninety minutes later.

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Coming together from near and far — Asheville, Atlanta, and five miles up the interstate — the adults did what Poles do best: talk, eat, talk, laugh, talk, sing, and talk.

The kids — two boys and four girls — did what they do best.

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Young Mothers

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Practicing

Tuesday 24 May 2011

K and I have been concerned about L’s attentiveness in Mass on Sunday. We’ve come to realize that she’s reached that age that quite, unobtrusive behavior is not the goal; participation is the goal.

To that end, we’ve been practicing after school. We stand for prayer, kneel at the end table, sit quietly. We practice crossing ourselves, including one of the oldest variants.

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“When do we kneel?” I ask.

“When the priest sets the holy bread,” L replies.

Sometimes the simplest way is the best.

Not Even With a Whimper

Saturday 21 May 2011

That’s great! It doesn’t start with an earthquake! And apparently for some, May is the cruelest month, breading disappointment out of dead prophecies, mixing frustration and desire. It’s supposed to be the end of the world as we know it, and no one left on Earth is supposed to feel fine. Yet with reports coming from Sumatra and New Zealand, where six o’clock has come and gone, show that today will pass just like any other.

Cult Watch has some good advice for Campings followers on this day of non-events. The first point is the hardest:

Be prepared to accept that you are wrong. Many others have claimed to know the end of the world before now, and obviously they were wrong. They too misinterpreted Scripture, so if the rapture does not occur on the 21st of May 2011 then you will have joined their ranks. This will be a blow to your ego and some will find this failure very emotional. The best course of action is to prepare to be humble. (Source)

It’s heady stuff, predicting the end of the world. When you’re a prophet that has figured out what no one else has figured out, it’s probably almost impossible not to get an inflated ego over it. Even if you’re not the prophet but someone supporting him (and of course it’s almost always a man), helping him, it’s easy to let all the esoterica to go to your head.

It’s not the first time people have lived through the end of the world, nor will it be the last. Religious huckster Herbert Armstrong predicted that the world would end in 1972. Almost forty years later and twenty-five years after his death, followers remain, still convinced that they know the signs of the times and will accurately see the end coming before anyone else.

One of Armstrong’s self-appointed successors is David Pack, who has his own church called The Restored Church of God. At the church’s magazine’s web site, there’s an article about the Camping prediction with the following lede: “Predictions from a small American religious sect have gained widespread attention.” Pack writes about all the reasons why Camping is wrong, and in the ultimate irony, ends the article, “If you are serious about learning the truth of the end time, read the most comprehensive book ever written on the subject” (source). Surprisingly, this book Pack mentions is the Bible, but he also suggests his The Bible’s Greatest Prophecies Unlocked! to reach full understanding of Scriptures.

It all brings to mind Eliot’s “The Hollow Men,” with it’s famous final stanza:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Camping would probably be content with a whimper this beautiful Saturday.

Growth

Sunday 15 May 2011

A garden is much like a family. The needs are the same: diligence, love, and guidance. The results are the same: nourishment (though emotional and spiritual rather than physical), a sense of accomplishment, and roots.

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In order to be healthy, they need similar environments: safe yet open, protected yet free.

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And they need sun.

Beatification

Sunday 1 May 2011

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Poles around the world are celebrating today’s beatification of Ioannes Paulus PP. II, born Karol Wojtyła and known to most of us as John Paul II. As with his death, most wanted a commemoration that would please John Paul II.

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Poles in the Greenville area celebrated with an outdoor Mass and picnic.

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With some free advertising from a Polish-owned market in the Charlotte area, probably two hundred people Poles from South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia gathered in a park outside Spartanburg. A cookout and impromptu soccer football match followed a Mass under a canopy of new leaves in celebration of a newly beatified Pole.

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The Mass included a number of songs, anecdotes, and poems about John Paul II, including an encore performance of “ÅšwiÄ™ty, ÅšwiÄ™ty UÅ›miechniÄ™ty,” the song L sang for the Palm Sunday celebration a few weeks ago.

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This time, she had a backing choir and a boom operator.

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After Mass, everyone did what Poles do best: converse and share food.

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There were piles of sausages, bowls of chips, salads of all descriptions, and a table of deserts, and though it was intended to be a “feed your own family” picnic plan, everyone ranged among the groups, sharing food and laughter (among other things).

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The children played

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the adults talked,

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and the priest played soccer football.

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Family, sports, dancing, laughing, and Mass —

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JPII was certainly smiling.