Tagged by blpurdom

1. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
2. Tag seven people to do the same.
3. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag whoever wants to do it.

1. I have an obsessive dread that I will someday drop my keys, either down a storm drain in the street or in the crack just beyond the open door of an elevator.

2. Whenever I take the girls in for their portraits, I drive them crazy by being obsessive about their hair: I always bring a comb and fuss around them to make sure no wisps of hair are sticking up or out of place. Our long-time photographer thinks this is amusing. The girls find it aggravating in the extreme. Often, a large part of the challenge is getting them to smile when in actuality they are hacked off at me.

3. kijjohnson and I talk at noon every Sunday, as we have for years. If we can't make our Sunday noon date, we try to arrange for another time. Best friendships need respect and regular maintenance.

4. I have a specific place for everything on my desk at work. The stapler, paper clip holder, notepad, etc., must always be in exactly the same place when I leave at night. I attribute this to the fact that my house is usually out of my control because of the people I live with, and so I make up for it by being anal about the one space I totally control.

5. I do straddle stretches every day after lunch. I am aggravated that I can't seem to stretch out my inner groin muscles any farther--I used to be as flexible as Delia, and I am trying to get it back. I go into the empty office just across from my desk, close the door, go down on the floor, and stretch. And curse in aggravation because I just don't seem to be getting any more flexible.

6. I will not wear anything orange near my face. I think it makes me look bilious.

7. When I get obsessed by certain songs, I have been known to play them hundreds of times in a row.

I tag dreamshark, pazlazuli, jbru, huladavid, aeditimi, nmalfoy and kiwiria

Thinking about Mother Teresa

I have been thinking a great deal about this article ever since I read it. Time Magazine has published a report about the inner life of Mother Teresa:

On Dec. 11, 1979, Mother Teresa, the "Saint of the Gutters," went to Oslo. Dressed in her signature blue-bordered sari and shod in sandals despite below-zero temperatures, the former Agnes Bojaxhiu received that ultimate worldly accolade, the Nobel Peace Prize. In her acceptance lecture, Teresa, whose Missionaries of Charity had grown from a one-woman folly in Calcutta in 1948 into a global beacon of self-abnegating care, delivered the kind of message the world had come to expect from her. "It is not enough for us to say, 'I love God, but I do not love my neighbor,'" she said, since in dying on the Cross, God had "[made] himself the hungry one — the naked one — the homeless one." Jesus' hunger, she said, is what "you and I must find" and alleviate. She condemned abortion and bemoaned youthful drug addiction in the West. Finally, she suggested that the upcoming Christmas holiday should remind the world "that radiating joy is real" because Christ is everywhere — "Christ in our hearts, Christ in the poor we meet, Christ in the smile we give and in the smile that we receive."

Yet less than three months earlier, in a letter to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, that is only now being made public, she wrote with weary familiarity of a different Christ, an absent one. "Jesus has a very special love for you," she assured Van der Peet. "[But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have [a] free hand."

The two statements, 11 weeks apart, are extravagantly dissonant. The first is typical of the woman the world thought it knew. The second sounds as though it had wandered in from some 1950s existentialist drama. Together they suggest a startling portrait in self-contradiction — that one of the great human icons of the past 100 years, whose remarkable deeds seemed inextricably connected to her closeness to God and who was routinely observed in silent and seemingly peaceful prayer by her associates as well as the television camera, was living out a very different spiritual reality privately, an arid landscape from which the deity had disappeared.

I have never entirely venerated Mother Teresa, as she supported many tenets of the Roman Catholic church that I simply cannot accept. But learning this about Mother Teresa has made me feel an unexpected kinship with her, and I have been brooding about that this week.

What I have been thinking about specifically is something that I have talked about with Kij occasionally over the years. I have always wanted my living to follow an ethical framework. I am, in fact, a Myers-Briggs ENFP ENFJ: the "F" (as opposed to "T") means that my mind operates on a "Feeling" axis rather than a "Thinking" one. But I have had to accept that how I live my life cannot be guided by how I feel about things. This is partly because I am subject to periodic bouts of depression, and so my feelings, which can occasionally be out of whack, are not a sound guideline. But more, I have come to feel that actions, if I wish to be ethical, must be guided by will, not by feeling.

Love is shown by actions, not by how one feels. I live out my love for my spouse not by how I feel about him but by how I treat him. Same with my kids. Same with God. It is painful, however, when these are dissonant. I have been thinking about what ethical questions it raises when this dissonance stretches on and on. Apparently these questions have been raised about Mother Teresa, too. If she experienced her relationship with God as being an endless silence, does this not mean, as some atheists have suggested, that she simply lacked courage to face what she should have realized as the truth, based on her own feelings: that there is in fact no God? Or was it in fact greater courage to continue on in obedience to what she felt was God's will, despite feeling no support or guidance from her God at all?

My depression seeps into many areas of my life: my faith, my marriage, my parenting. How do I live my life, despite it? What things must I continue to do, no matter what I feel? What must I keep doing, even if my feelings tell me that I am being a fool, that all is hopeless?

Much to think about.

I drove today

I am still a little sore from the karate test on Saturday, particularly in my hamstrings. The weather report predicted thunderstorms, and I just didn't feel like getting rained on today.

It felt so decadent to simply step out of my house, get in the car and drive to work.

And now I feel so guilty.

[I chose this icon, as I do when I am pondering ethical decisions. And then I realized that Dumbledore had it easy. He simply would have apparated.]

Craving cream tea

I want to go out for cream tea. Maybe at Cafe Latte.

I want cucumber sandwiches, crusts removed. I want a pot of Yorkshire Gold tea, with heavy cream. I want my sugar served in lumps from a lovely china sugar bowl. I want current scones, tender and slightly warm from the oven, dusted with crystallized sugar. And clotted cream and raspberry jam for spreading on top. I want a Bag End seed cake. I want pameladean's gingerbread. I want a decadent flourless chocolate torte. I want a seat in a lovely tea room overlooking a rain-spangled garden and a leisurely afternoon to visit with my girls or with a friend.

Alas, I have none of these things.

A tea bag of English Breakfast, dumped in a cup of water warmed up in the microwave and doctored with paper sugar packets and Coffeemate just ain't the same.

*sigh*

What do you think?

What do you think about [Poll #1046656][Poll #1046656]

A Lovely Surprise

I came home today, tired and subdued, to find the girls in the kitchen, vibrating with excitement. "Surprise!"

I looked around. The kitchen had been cleaned up. Rob had taken the wire shelving that has been in the girls' room for the past six years and turned it into a pantry shelving at the side of the kitchen. All the extra cans and boxes that have been littering the kitchen floor were up and neatly stacked away. And with stuff actually out of the way, the kitchen floor had been cleaned.

More surprises followed. The girls were in their birthday dresses. "Your dress is laid out on your bed. Go change!"

I stepped into the dining room to discover it was transformed. Both the living room and dining room were picked up. The table was beautifully set with all our fall linens, and my Nana's beautiful old tea set was all laid out. All the tea light holders from my office were scattered around the dining room, lit with candles, and George Winston was playing softly from the boom box in the background. A little bouquet of flowers had been picked, tied with a ribbon, and was resting at my place setting.

"Daddy read what you posted on LiveJournal, so we're having tea! And then we'll have formal dinner!"

Tears came to my eyes. What a beautiful, wonderful surprise. I went up, got dressed in the dress I'd worn in my anniversary picture, and then came down. We had Yorkshire Gold tea and crackers spread with raspberry jam. After we had our tea, the girls cleared the table and started serving dinner. Fruit salad was the first course, and then spaghetti with real shredded parmesan. Delia brought out a bottle of sparkling grape juice and everyone was given a glass.

Rob took a sip and offered a true Minnesota compliment: "That's not totally repulsive."

I cracked up.

We lingered over dinner. This is what it means to have a family, I thought, and I was flooded with sentimental gratitude. Yes, my girls and my husband sometimes drive me crazy. But then I get something like today's heart-felt gift, when they spend an afternoon knocking themselves out to give me a wonderful surprise, to give me joy.

Because they love me.

We have decided to take a hiatus before dessert (pudding pie and ice cream). I am using the girls' computer to tell you about my surprise (Rob's still working on getting mine configured.)

The girls have also told me I'm not to do the dishes (although it should have been my job, since I didn't cook.) Instead, Rob and the girls will do them.

I took pictures. Once my computer is up and running, I will post them for you all to see.

Edited to add: Pictures are here!