Thursday, October 30, 2008

Prayer request

For John, who is planning a conference here. It begins on Monday and the last minute details are getting a bit hairy. Please pray that he will be able to stay calm, think clearly, find solutions to last minute problems (one of them pretty major), and keep his perspective.

And for me, so I remember not to burden him with all the little woes around the house for the next week or so. He has enough to worry about.

Thanks!

Funny bone

Matthew continues to be amused by the sounds of certain words. Here are a few that send him into fits of giggles:

lumpy (still--this one has tickled him since he was two)

cozy

jukebox

oof!

Tonight at dinner, Joseph made up a sentence that brought great hilarity: "Look, it's a lumpy, cozy jukebox."

Matthew almost giggled himself out of his chair.

Overheard

Matthew: (saying something about Maid Marian)

Joseph: You have to marry Maid Marian.

Matthew: No, you do. You're RobertEarlofHuntingdon. (he runs the whole name together into one)

Joseph: But I don't want to marry Maid Marian.

Matthew: Then ... simply refuse.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

An open letter to family and friends about the election

Dear family and friends,

This got to be very long; I apologize in advance for that. I wanted to quote directly from the guidance I sought in addition to providing links in case anyone was interested. If it's too long, skip the quotes, or skip the whole thing. My purpose isn't to change your mind, it's to help you understand mine.

Politically, I have been a declared Independent for about 10 years now, and it seems more and more difficult in each election for me to find a candidate who meets all my requirements as a Catholic. But our ballots arrived in the mail last week, and it's time to decide. As a lifelong Catholic, I have found that when I have made good decisions, i.e., decisions that brought long-term positive results, they are the ones in which I have allowed my faith to inform the decision, whether it be a choice of entertainment or lifestyle or really, anything. For this reason, I decided it was important to go back and read and try to understand Church teaching on voting before deciding upon a candidate. I wanted my decision to be informed by my faith. So I took a look at the U.S. Bishops statement, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.” (You can read/download it in PDF format from http://www.faithfulcitizenship.org/ )

The bishops state in paragraph 21 and following, “21. Aided by the virtue of prudence in the exercise of well-formed consciences, Catholics are called to make practical judgments regarding good and evil choices in the political arena.

22. There are some things we must never do, as individuals or as a society, because they are always incompatible with love of God and neighbor. Such actions are so deeply flawed that they are always opposed to the authentic good of persons. These are called “intrinsically evil” actions. They must always be rejected and opposed and must never be supported or condoned. A prime example is the intentional taking of innocent human life, as in abortion and euthanasia. In our nation, “abortion and euthanasia have become preeminent threats to human dignity because they directly attack life itself, the most fundamental human good and the condition for all others” (Living the Gospel of Life, no. 5). It is a mistake with grave moral consequences to treat the destruction of innocent human life merely as a matter of individual choice. A legal system that violates the basic right to life on the grounds of choice is fundamentally flawed.

23. Similarly, direct threats to the sanctity and dignity of human life, such as human cloning and destructive research on human embryos, are also intrinsically evil. These must always be opposed. Other direct assaults on innocent human life and violations of human dignity, such as genocide, torture, racism, and the targeting of noncombatants in acts of terror or war, can never be justified."

Okay, I would say most Americans agree that actions that harm human life are wrong. So what does that mean for a Catholic who is voting or weighing the positions of the various candidates? The bishops continue:

"26. Pope John Paul II explained the importance of being true to fundamental Church teachings:

Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights—for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture—is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination. (Christifideles Laici, no. 38)"

So in terms of voting, how must I defend life with maximum determination? Then-Cardinal Ratzinger dealt with this question in 2004, “A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.” (http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/bishops/04-7ratzingerommunion.htm )

I wouldn’t vote for either candidate because I agreed with his position supporting a grave evil, so the question then becomes, what is a proportionate reason? A proportionate reason could be preventing something that is an equally grave evil.

In considering the two major party candidates, I have to then look at their stands on the other issues that the Bishops have identified, what I think of as “threshold issues,” meaning that the candidate must not support these or s/he doesn’t get in the door. These are the grave evils: promoting public policies that support abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, torture, terrorism, repression of religious liberty, or racial discrimination (Faithful Citizenship, paragraph 23). I think I’m summarizing correctly to say that these are all issues that go to the dignity of the human person, and attacks on that dignity are grave evils.

There are many other important issues that are often pointed out, which the bishops state are linked as life issues (paragraph 25), such as healthcare, education, and poverty abatement, but, according to the bishops, these follow from the right to life, they do not supersede it. In fact, when I think about it, they are meaningless unless a person has life in the first place. So, a candidate must cross the “intrinsic evil” threshold before I can look at those issues, although I am obligated to consider them, as well. And I guess that’s where it gets tricky.

More from Faithful Citizenship:

"27. Two temptations in public life can distort the Church’s defense of human life and dignity:

28. The first is a moral equivalence that makes no ethical distinctions between different kinds of issues involving human life and dignity. The direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life from the moment of conception until natural death is always wrong and is not just one issue among many. It must always be opposed.

29. The second is the misuse of these necessary moral distinctions as a way of dismissing or ignoring other serious threats to human life and dignity. Racism and other unjust discrimination, the use of the death penalty, resorting to unjust war, the use of torture, war crimes, the failure to respond to those who are suffering from hunger or a lack of health care, or an unjust immigration policy are all serious moral issues that challenge our consciences and require us to act. These are not optional concerns which can be dismissed. Catholics are urged to seriously consider Church teaching on these issues."

So, I have to compare the major candidates on all of these issues, Obama supports abortion (and infanticide as I would define it “killing an infant,” based on his vote in Illinois against the Born Alive Infants Protection Act http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/obama_and_infanticide.html ), but not torture. He is not opposed to embryonic stem cell research or human cloning. But he is concerned about reducing poverty and hunger and determined to end the Iraq war.

McCain opposes abortion, supports embryonic stem cell research but not cloning and although he says he does not support torture, based on some of his other statements about the war and current policies, I’m not sure I believe him, so possibly (probably?) also torture (this is a fine point because I define torture differently than the Bush Administration's defenders interpret US law as defining torture). McCain's campaign information says he also wants to end the war, but his timetable is different from Obama’s.

(NB: The bishops discuss their position on the war in paragraphs 67 and 68 of Faithful Citizenship:

(the pertinent part)
"The war in Iraq confronts us with urgent moral choices. We support a “responsible transition” that ends the war in a way that recognizes the continuing threat of fanatical extremism and global terror, minimizes the loss of life, and addresses the humanitarian crisis in Iraq, the refugee crisis in the region, and the need to protect human rights, especially religious freedom. This transition should reallocate resources from war to the urgent needs of the poor."

If what I read last week in Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper, was correct, this sort of "responsible transition" is already in the works. The reality is that the withdrawal can only happen so fast. The UN deadline for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is already set, and the agreements on how that will be done have already begun to be drafted. In fact, the initial proposal was presented by the Iraqi government to the U.S. Dept. of State a week or two ago. The withdrawal will most likely happen on the UN timetable without regard for which candidate is sitting in the oval office at that time.

Would I like it to happen sooner? Heck yes! I would love for all the missing dads and moms from this base to get home tomorrow and be with their kids for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. I would love to have our pastor back from "downrange" as they call it, so we could have Mass on base here again. But do I want to make the mess we have made of Iraq even worse by pulling troops out without appropriate measures in place to keep the peace there? No. From a Christian standpoint, that would bring much greater harm to the people of Iraq than we already have brought. Not to mention failing to protect the remnant of the Iraqi Christian community that is still hanging on there, but which will be demolished if protections are not put in place for them.

From what I have learned of them, both candidates support some forms of intrinsic evil. I can’t really vote for either one without needing to consider the ‘proportionate reasons’ guidance Cardinal Ratzinger provides above. If I must vote for one, whom do I choose? It’s hard to balance these horrors. Both candidates support embryonic stem cell research, so there's no difference between them there. (Correction 10/30/08 (thank you, Dan): There is a nuance here that I missed. Obama supports the creation of new humans for the purposes of research while McCain supports only the use of frozen humans who would otherwise remain frozen or be discarded. McCain's position still calls for the abuse of human persons, but would result in fewer lives lost.)

The torture of prisoners against whom charges have not even been formally brought is unconscionable. It is conduct that is a disgrace to our nation and to humanity. But so is abortion. And the war is a horrible thing, as well.

So then what? At this point, to try to find some sort of way to determine proportions, I decided to compare the numbers of victims. What I discovered was chilling. Over the past five years, 4,188 American soldiers have died in Iraq (http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/ ). Even that many deaths, even the horrors of Guantanamo, are not as horrific as the abortion deaths of 45 million American children over the past 35 years since Roe was decided (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5309a1.htm#fig1 ). (Some accounts say 48 million children in the US alone—and scheduled to pass 50 million before the end of this year http://www.nrlc.org/Factsheets/FS03_AbortionintheUS.pdf ).

45-48 million. Innocent infants. I can hardly think of it. I can hardly comprehend the number.

So there it is.

The objection often raised, that McCain may not do anything to overturn Roe, is well taken. He can’t; not directly anyway. It’s a judicial matter and he is running for an executive office. He could appoint pro-life judges, but he might not. The reality is that judicial appointments are a might, not a will—complete speculation about what the president and the judge may or may not do. In any case, overturning Roe doesn’t really end abortion in the US anyway. It simply puts the decision-making back in the hands of the individual states, many of which have laws allowing abortion that would go back into effect immediately. So at best, McCain may (indirectly) return the abortion decision to the States. At worst, he may leave things as they are.

But last summer at a Planned Parenthood fundraiser, Obama said that one of his first acts in office would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act as soon as congress sends it to him http://www.nrlc.org/FOCA/index.html (the speech is also on YouTube), a bill which would strike down all governmental limits on abortion throughout the country. Every state law: from limits on partial birth abortion, to requirements that licensed physicians perform abortions, to fully informed consent, to parental notice laws, would be overcome by this act that would allow all abortions in all trimesters for any reason as a federal requirement. Obama has plainly stated that he intends to ensure that my tax dollars would be paying for even more abortions than they already are. He intends to expand the evil. That, to me, is far more grievous than keeping the status quo.

So now I have 45 million murdered unborn infants and one candidate who stated a clear intent to block legitimate limits on abortion approved by state legislatures. At this point, I’m not sure what could possibly be worse. All the wars in the past two centuries haven’t killed this many people. Nothing ever has. There really is nothing proportional to this. Obama has failed the ‘proportionate reasons’ test.

Therefore, I cannot in good conscience vote for Obama. I wish there were a viable 3rd party candidate who came at all of these issues from a Catholic standpoint rather than a purely Democratic or Republican one. That is really the only way I’m ever going to be able to vote freely and happily for someone. But I know from what our parents taught us, and from what the Bishops’ tell me, that “participation in political life [is] a moral obligation.” (Faithful Citizenship, para. 13) So I have to vote for someone.

And the bishops instruct me that I am not a “single issue voter” if I follow their guidance (“42. As Catholics we are not single-issue voters. A candidate’s position on a single issue is not sufficient to guarantee a voter’s support. Yet a candidate’s position on a single issue that involves an intrinsic evil, such as support for legal abortion or the promotion of racism, may legitimately lead a voter to disqualify a candidate from receiving support.”) (Faithful Citizenship)

And they remind me of my duty: “89. As Catholics, we are led to raise questions for political life other than “Are you better off than you were two or four years ago?” Our focus is not on party affiliation, ideology, economics, or even competence and capacity to perform duties, as important as such issues are. Rather, we focus on what protects or threatens human life and dignity.” (Faithful Citizenship)

When I stand before God and He asks me whether I did all I could to protect "these least ones" I want to tell him truthfully that I did. That's why I must vote against the candidate who would expand the evil of abortion. I must vote for life.

With love,
Judy

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

An election prayer

Election Prayer

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Lord Jesus Christ, You told us to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God. Enlighten the minds of our people [in] America. May we choose a President of the United States, and other government officials, according to Your Divine Will. Give our citizens the courage to choose leaders of our nation who respect the sanctity of unborn human life, the sanctity of marriage, the sanctity of marital relations, the sanctity of the family, and the sanctity of the aging. Grant us the wisdom to give You, what belongs to You, our God. If we do this, as a nation, we are confident You will give us an abundance of Your blessings through our elected leaders. Amen.

Composed by Father John Anthony Hardon, S.J.

Imprimatur: +Rene H. Gracida, Bishop of Corpus Christi, July 7, 1992
Published by Eternal Life in 1992


Thanks to Fr. Z, who posted this yesterday.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Cheer!


Katie has been having fun cheerleading this fall.



It's funny. She's not very excited about the flag football games they cheer for.


She told me that she thinks practice is more fun than cheering for the games. ;-)


I wonder if it's because they don't cheer for a certain team all the time, just for whichever team is scheduled to play at the time they are cheering. Maybe it's more fun if you know the people on the team or it's your school team.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Harvest begins



The local farmers began the harvest with the daikon at the end of September.


None of the rice fields I have seen have been drained, so no rice reaping yet.



They usually drain the fields at least a week or so before harvest. As the rice matures, however, we do begin to see bird-deterrents in various fields.


There are a lot of different ways to deter sparrows from eating the grains. The kids and I were especially charmed by this army of scarecrows--six in all--guarding one field not far from our house.

3 in this photo (click to see it larger), two are out in mid-field on the diagonal from the near one)



and a row of both male and female guardians along the edge of the field

No sparrows to be seen in this field (at the moment, anyway).


Most farmers aren't so creative. They simply employ mylar ribbons.


This brings to mind a question. In the US we are very careful not to throw rice at weddings because we have been told that if it is eaten by birds, it will expand in their stomachs and kill them. Why, then, do we not have a surfeit of bloated sparrows littering the Japanese countryside each fall? They eat the stuff like it's candy, fluttering above the stalks and swooping down to munch, then flying off to nearby trees before swooping in again and again and again.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Raspberries

Meghan's newest skill is blowing raspberries. She finds this drooly activity highly entertaining. So do we :-)




Sorry it's sideways. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to post videos.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Two weeks of feasts

Monday, Sept. 29: Feast of the Archangels, Patrick Michael's name day
Dinner: homemade burgers on the grill
Dessert: Death by Chocolate




Tuesday, September 30: Feast of St. Jerome--time to break out the old Bible
Dinner: grilled chicken and teriyaki vegetables
Dessert: more Death by Chocolate :-)



Wednesday, October 1: Feast of St. Therese of Liseux, Margaret Maire-Therese's first name day
Dinner: tuna casserole (little dinners for little saints)
Dessert: apple pie. Matthew was convinced that this was what Meghan wanted for her name day dessert. Sounded good to the rest of us, too. Didn't hurt that it fit right in with "A" week in our preschool program, either.



Thursday, October 2: Feast of the Guardian Angels, a feast for everyone
Dinner: spaghetti and meat sauce (I like to feed Patrick pasta before he leaves town for a race)
Dessert: leftover death by chocolate or apple pie

Friday, October 3: John's birthday
Dinner: grilled cheese and tomato soup, if you can believe it
Dessert: German chocolate cake (now that's more like it!)




Saturday, October 4: Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, John's and Matthew Francis's name day
Dinner: pizza
Dessert: cherry vanilla ice cream pie. Matthew chose this one, and it was delicious. You might think it was a break from all the chocolate, but no, it had a chocolate cookie crust.

Sunday: Sunday, Sunday, Sunday :-) John's real birthday dinner will be tonight. Steaks on the grill and more German chocolate cake.



Then, my birthday on October 10th: John took us out to dinner, and we came home to a dessert of Henry's Cheesecake: YUM!!



John's baptism day on October 11th: more cheesecake (what a shame that he had to eat leftovers ;-). That's turtle, carmel Heath, and a bit of strawberry swirl left on the plate.



October 16: Meghan's 2nd name day, the feast of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque: 7-layer cookie bars.

I wish I had a 12-layer dessert for the 12 promises Jesus gave to St. Margaret Mary for devotion to His Sacred Heart. Maybe I can come up with something by next year. :-)



My baptism day on the 18th (also the feast of Saint Luke): Ben & Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch. Made with fair trade coffee extract, it's both delicious and politically correct.

Okay, I think we're done for awhile now.

By the 11th, John started asking, "When are we going to get a break from all this dessert?"

The kids, on the other hand, are now searching through saint information to try to make the case for additional feast days. Last Friday, Katie made heartfelt argument for dessert in celebration of St. Ignatius of Antioch because he was probably the name day saint for St. Ignatius of Loyola, who is a patron of our home school. Nice try.

And not a bad preparation for All Saints Day coming up in a couple of weeks. I think we might even let them win a few if they keep this up. :-)

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

4 months old


Meghan was four months old last Saturday. Already, I find myself looking at her and saying, "Where has the time gone?" She looks so much older than she did even a few weeks ago.

12 weeks


17 weeks

She's rolling over from her tummy to her back now, and Wednesday, successfully rolled from back to tummy. She didn't repeat that feat until today when she rolled over several times while reaching for toys. She grabs anything within reach. A little more coordination, and I'm going to have to be careful with the camera ;-)


She's teething like crazy, gnawing on everything from her fingers to her car seat buckle. Last weekend, her older siblings thought she might enjoy the cool glass of a root beer bottle. She found it quite satisfying until mean old Mommy took it away (although not until after taking photos).


Thank goodness for the wooden teething toy Aunt Carol and Uncle Rob sent her! She is pretty miserable, even so. I've actually done a bit of online searching for an amber teething necklace, but haven't found a U.S. source for them. I'm getting ready to buy one from Canada, unless someone knows of another good source??


At her 4-month checkup on Monday, she weighed 14.8 lbs (down to the 75th percentile), and was about 26 inches long (still in the 95th percentile). Head circumference? I don't know because I didn't get the info paper they usually give out and so it wasn't written down.

How can these knees be only in the 75th percentile?

Dr. H. and I had a very serious conversation about her immunizations. He is a good listener--a wonderful quality to find in a pediatrician when you don't really get to choose your own. He told me that it sounded to him like Meghan had an adverse reaction last time, but not an allergic reaction and definitely not a seizure, which would be reasons to delay or decline future immunizations. So he recommended that we get the vaccinations, but also that I stay at the hospital with Meghan for 30 minutes afterwards in case she had a similar reaction.

Because we live in Asia and will be traveling to places other than Japan in the next 6 months or so, I was concerned about skipping the shots, but more concerned about getting them if Meghan's previous reaction was a sign of allergy. I had been praying about this situation ever since her first shots, and really wasn't sure what the final decision would be until the appointment was over. Since Dr. H had listened so well, I felt he had understood what happened. His recommendation seemed thoughtful, trustworthy, and reasonable.

So Meghan got her shots and she was completely fine. The person giving shots this time was much more gentle in her manner. She let me hold Meghan on my lap during the shots so that I could comfort her immediately. Meghan cried, but it was not the frightening, screaming, non-breathing cry that emanated from the depths of her wounded soul the last time.


She stopped crying quickly, nursed for 10 minutes, then sat up with a big smile on her face. She proceeded to stay awake, alert, and pleasant the remaining 20 minutes until we were able to go home. She made all my worries seem ridiculous. Thanks be to God and the intercession of St. Therese.

Sleep, baby, sleep


Meghan has started to do a funny thing. She sucks two fingers as she falls asleep. A lot of the time, she holds the fingers in with her other hand. Funny and so cute.



(Sweet nightgown, Grandmom. Thank you!)

Sunday, October 19, 2008



This handsome fellow went with a bunch of friends to the homecoming dance a couple of Saturdays ago.. The music was not their style, so they left early to go bowling, then to a friend's house for a rock band video game. Apparently they lost their lead singer when we picked Patrick up.

Cross country

Misawa's two best runners

The Edgren Eagles hosted their DoDDS rivals in Misawa a couple of weeks ago, during homecoming weekend. It was our only chance to see Patrick run this season, since the rest of the meets are in Tokyo or farther south.

a friend from Yakima runs for Yokota

our favorite runner :-)

another homeschooler on the team


checking in after the finish


they're too cool for their warm-ups


Edgren's youngest fan

Surprise!


I thought orchid blooming season was over--we had lots of beautiful blooms in the late winter, spring, and early summer, then none from mid-summer on.

Then, last week, I decided to clean the windowsill, clip brown leaves, and do some general maintenance, and I found this flower on the side of the orchid toward the window. I guess the autumn light was enough to bring out the bloom.

a happy, autumn-colored surprise

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Vote for life

Oh my goodness

Has it really been two weeks since we've posted anything?
Whew! this fall the weeks are flying by. We are in review week this week for school and exams for the first quarter next week.
Patrick's in Tokyo for the Kanto Plain finals. Next week, he is hoping to get to the DoDDS finals, but he's running hurt already. So please keep him in your prayers.
More on Meghan's 4-month check-up to come.
Photos of cross country and cheerleading.
And some lovely Japanese etchings and a wood block print.
And there have been two birthdays, two name days, and two baptism days in there.
I hope to get some time tomorrow afternoon to post about our hike along the Oirase Gorge last weekend, too.
Hope you are all well.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Too much information

While we were eating birthday cake last night, Katie noticed that Matthew was holding his fork in his right fist. Rather than immediately correcting his hold, she gently sought information.

"Matthew," she asked, "Do you know how to hold a pencil?"

"Yes," replied our preschooler, "I hold it like this (holding his left hand up in a fist)."

There was a brief pause, and I wondered how Katie would respond.

Instead Matthew continued, "Except when it's my snake tongue. Then I put it in my mouth and wiggle it with my teeth."

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

More autumn bounty

When life gives you tomatoes...

...make Tomato-Phyllo Pizza.