One Mother to Another

Today in my daughter's blog she referenced an article about the Catholic Church's rethinking of the concept of limbo. You know limbo. It's the place where unbaptized babies and other innocents go after death. You have to give the church credit for not sending those little imaculate souls there instead of hell but even when I was a small child it all seemed unfair and unnecessary.

The church has decided to let God perform triage on innocent souls, allowing them into heaven as he sees fit. I imagine that God's desk has a new plaque that proclaims, "The Buck Stops Here." I'm sure he's up to the task.

My beef with the Catholic Church concerns decisions made to answer the questions of the reasoning faithful. Limbo must have been the result of such a question. My favorite is the "Imaculate Conception," the idea that Mary was the only human being other than Jesus himself, born without original sin. Really, I think it would have been better to establish Mary as an "every woman" than to cast her image as the purest vessel ever born.

Personally I think the imaculate conception came from the feeling that somehow women are dirty. We are the "near occasion of sin" we learned about in CCD. That means a big temptation to you non CCD raised folks. Those cardinals coulnd't imagine a woman good enough to give birth to the savior so they declared Mary to be other.

It's not that I'm a total nonbeliever. I've turned to Mary many times when I've been worried about my children. She knew the joy and pain of motherhood. She lost her son. I've lost a son. It's complicated but I'm comfortable praying to her, asking for the grace to go on that I think comes more easily from the feminine.

So a few old guys with funny red hats declared her special. She already had what no convocation of cardinals could grant her. She didn't seem to require more.

Not Quite Myself

You might have noticed I haven't been blogging much lately. I haven't written becasue I'm not myself. I mean, of course I am myself but I don't feel like myself. I'm watching me. Outside of myself.

You see, my son Matthew died in October. He was sick for a long time. We hadn't had a real conversation in at least a year. He suffered. I watched him suffer and tried to advocate for him in any way I could. Sometimes that meant making sure the doctors didn't forget to rewrite his anitphychotic medication when he went back to the nursing home from the hospital. Sometimes it meant making sure the aides put a warmer shirt to keep his tiny arms warm.

I ddin't realize he was on my mind all the time. If I hadn't seen him during the day the little nagging voice in my head would remind me that I might be his only visitor that day. I was always on the lookout for a little toy that would make him smile. Taking care of Matthew was what defined my life for almost thirty years.

And now he's gone. And I'm watching myself and waiting for the sad to come. I clean, and cook and talk to people, go to Chirstmas parties, even opened a my new store and I can't feel a thing. Sure I have teary moments but most of the time I'm so fine it's unbelievable.

It's Christmas and Mattthew is gone and so am I.

The Pope Speaks on Chirstmas

Yesterday while I was playing my new favorite game on the computer I listeded half heartedly to the evening news. Iwas relaxing after celebrating Christmas with my husband's family over the weekend. We have a couple of doctors in our family who will be on call during Chirstmas weekend so we celebrated a little early with them.

The weekend was otherwise eventful. My new store opened on Friday and my daughter brought her boyfriend to meet us for the first time. It was a great weekend for all the right reasons. Daughter and boyfriend were fun. He's just as great as she said. The grandkids laughed and played and the grown kids enjoyed being together.

The good company, the laughter and stories and good food happened in spite of my not so clean house and my undecorated Christmas tree and general unready state. And that brings me back to the evening news. The pope deliverd a Chirstmas message over the weekend. Chirstmas is just too commercial. The spirit is lost in the rush to buy presents and make cookies. We are compelled to redecorate our houses.

Women make Christmas. We cook and shop and put up the tree and plan for the perfect gifts. We have an image in our heads and hearts that is difficult to produce in real life. But we continue to try. It's the time of year when we try to match our frazzled lives with every unrealistic expectation imaginable.

Il Papa is right. We should be more mindful of the real reason for the holiday. Now I feel even more stressed trying to figure out how to accomplish that.

Our weekend was Christmas light. The Pizza was great. So was the company.