I like music. A lot. I also like a little alliteration. So by combining my love for music and alliteration, I bring you Music Mondays. Not too convincing. But hey, here goes...

The Monkees. A strange way to start. They sort of embody the term popculture. They existed in order to be popular. Playing songs written by Neil Diamond and others. A hit TV show. Even for a time outselling the Beatles and Rolling Stones combined. In a way the Monkees are everything I hate about music. However, I am willing to give them a pass for things such as the video below. Daydream Believer is fun. It's catchy. Davy Jones has some groovy dance moves which are amplified by his bell bottom pants. It makes the boys and I smile when we watch this video. And yes, the song can stick with you for the rest of the day. You're welcome.

How to change a lightbulb

Maybe you've seen this before...


How does a homeschooler change a lightbulb?

"First, Mom checks three books on electricity out of the library. Then the kids make models of light bulbs, read a biography of Thomas Edison, and do a skit based on his life. Next, everyone studies the history of lighting methods, wrapping up with dipping their own candles. After that, everyone takes a trip to the store, where they compare types of light bulbs, as well as prices, and figures out how much change they'll get if they buy two bulbs for $1.99 and pay with a five-dollar bill. On the way home a discussion ensues about the history of money and also about Abraham Lincoln, since his picture is on the five-dollar bill. Finally, after a homemade ladder is built out of branches dragged from the woods, the light bulb is installed. And there is light."



Well, let me give a new one for you. Do you know how a lightbulb gets changed at a public school?

First a light goes out. For several days all who pass by pretend as if they do not notice. Finally a wisecracker kid speaks up that the light needs changing. A grumpy teacher then writes up and enters a help ticket on the computer which includes a 10 minute form answering various unrelated questions to the lightbulb. Then an email concerning the lightbulb is sent out to several people, including all admin, custodians, and division maintenance employees. The help ticket is then ignored for four weeks. The lack of light soon becomes unbearable for one rebel teacher, who then sneaks into a broom closet and finds, hiding behind cleaning chemicals, a matching lightbulb. The teacher changes the lightbulb, and there is light. Upon exiting the room a fellow teacher notices the changing of the lightbulb. Soon others are notified and the guilty teacher is chided by the school union rep for doing a duty which, by its very nature, will be taking a job away from a fellow union employee. Children will starve. Chaos and anarchy will reign. Days later a maintenance man shows up, looking for the lightbulb that needs changing. He spends 30 minutes looking for the lightbulb. Being unsuccessful, he has admin join him for another fruitless 30 minutes of searching. Finally everyone gives up. A general warning is sent to all staff to take such school maintenance help tickets seriously. Additionally, the computer help ticket software system is thrown all out of wack by the unfulfilled lightbulb request, and so IT staff are called in to fix the confusion. The teacher spends the rest of the week walking around the school as if he were a convicted criminal. And then he notices another burnt out lightbulb... and keeps walking.

*loosely based on real life*

Making the World More Beautiful

The boys and I were reading before bed. This time the book was about a young girl who told her grandfather that she had two goals in life: 1) to travel to far away places, 2) to eventually live by the sea. The grandfather was fine with this, but he made her promise to follow a third goal: to make the world a more beautiful place. The book ends with the girl, as an older lady, planting flowers all over her town to make the world more beautiful.

At the end of the book I asked the boys the question: what are you going to do to make the world more beautiful?

John Paul: "Um, I will buy a house with a porch!"

Daddy: "A house with a porch?"

John Paul: "Yeah, I will buy the house and it will have a porch!"

- - -

Joseph: "I will make concrete that has sparkles in it. Then when you walk on it, it will sparkle."

Daddy: "Very nice."

- - -

Joseph: "What are you going to do Daddy?"

Daddy: I already have made the world more beautiful!"

Joseph: "How?"

Daddy: "I have the three most beautiful kids who make the world so beautiful!"

*the boys smile sweetly*

And it's true!

Joseph On Ice

For years Joseph has envisioned jumping onto the ice like the Montreal Canadiens do. Crowd cheering. Coldplay's Fix You playing. A magnificent moment! Well, Joseph had his first hockey practice ever. That magnificent moment arrived. And I captured it on a little ipod camera. Enjoy!

Points to Ponder: Thanksgiving Edition

1) Thanksgiving weekend is here! 

Yippee! I had so many plans. Some DIY building projects. Some yard work. Some time with the family. Lots of good food. And then we had a week for the ages. Behold:

It snowed for nearly four days straight. Cancel those plans. Most of the province has been a mess of snow this week. Yet that hasn't influenced the powers that be to call a snow day at school. They don't do that around here. A couple of days we had no buses running. Yesterday they were running, but getting stuck everywhere. Some of our students showed up just before lunch. Their bus had gotten stuck. So another bus came to get them, but it got stuck. A tow truck came to pull them out but then it got stuck. Another tow truck came on the scene, but it got stuck. Finally a farmer in a big tractor was called in to clean out the mess. It sounds funny, but I seriously wonder how long it will be before someone gets killed on a bus before they realize the odd snow day isn't the worst thing in the world.

2) Rake or Shovel?

The early start to winter has been the strangest I've ever seen. I mean, the leaves haven't even fallen yet. Although today, with a balmy temperature of two degrees, they've started. So... are you supposed to rake the leaves or shovel them?

3) Three is the Number

Three stands for three in a row. Our Roughriders are on a roll! They won again last night. It's too late in the season to make the playoffs (unless we were in the lousy east division). Still though, they are playing some great football and everyone's excited about the prospects of next year. It's been quite the rebuild. Our average age is just 25 years. We've also set a CFL record for starting the most people in games (due to injuries). For a while we were getting blown out of games. But I remember back in August when we were watching the Riders practice at Taylor Field. One of the daily practice goers was saying nobody would want to play us later in the year. Although we had several more losses, that saying stuck with me. Today it's true. And for the record, despite the many losses, the Riders continue to lead the league in attendance, their road games are the biggest draws for the home team, and their games rank highest in the TV ratings. 

4) Emilie

What can I say about this little girl? She's our sweetie. Our cutie patootie. The princess of the country (as Joseph calls her). Today she slept in. And slept in. And slept in some more. Finally at 11am we just had to go wake her up. We missed her so much!

Here's a sideways video of her chatting away.

5) "In the middle of that riot, couldn't get you off my mind."

Not to be outdone, the boys are pretty amazing too. I mean... picture a little fuzzy blue bear, holding an empty juice container, singing Bobcaygeon by the Tragically Hip.

6) Sneak Peak

I'm probably not supposed to post these pictures. But last week, before the storm, we took some family pictures at my parent's place. Because every year Becca forces us to take pictures (Gosh!). I think they might be intended for Christmas cards, but who knows.

Us on the hill where we're supposed to build our house someday. The church in Nipawin would drive us to drinking too quickly, so we'd better not. Unless, of course, some holy Benedictines feel so inclined to move into the area.

Hanging out on old Betsy. Betsy was the best truck. Except when it rained. Running out to squeegee the windows every minute or so was a bit much. But it added to the charm. And at least we had a windshield!

7) Thanksgiving

It goes without saying that the purpose of this weekend is to give thanks. Something I am terrible at. Thanks be to God, family, friends, enemies (you know who you are) and even the snow mixed with leaves on the ground.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Sentimental Journey

Our Catholic Church appears to be coming more and more sentimental. This has been well documented. Sappy music. Sappy vestments. Sappy teaching. Sentimentality. From the Latin Sentire meaning "to feel". Some synonyms include: tender, emotional, affectionate, and sugary.

Last weekend we had the joy of being forced to watch yet another Bishop's Annual Appeal video. Better known as BAA. We are the sheep after all. Perhaps you are familiar with BAA videos. They consist of a poor quality diocesan produced DVD wherein there is much babbling and self-indulging, completely unrelated to the intended purpose of asking for money, until the video is mercifully ended, though not before they finally get around to a quick plea for money so that the babbling and self-indulging can carry on for another year. Meanwhile, the pewsitter is forced, under pain of mortal sin, to listen to said video in order to fulfill one's Sunday obligation. And so we had yet another rousing video this past weekend.

Remember when men were men?

It began with a girl at a piano singing a song. The song was pop-ish in tone, and was entirely about how "we will shine." It was very tender, emotional, affectionate, and sugary. In other words, it was sentimental. It was also very self-indulgent and a pile of horse manure. From there on we got to see the Bishop. In this particular video the Bishop channeled his inner George Stromboupoulos and began interviewing a family. The Q and A centered around how to pass on the faith to kids. There was talk of family prayer, and even going to church together. Absent was any mention of catechesis, sacraments, living the cross, or even of beauty. One of the older boys in the family was then asked about his faith. He responded that when he skips church he doesn't feel as close to God. But when he goes to church he feels closer. What is the logical syllogism with that? Going to church makes me feel closer to God. Therefore, if I want to feel closer to God, I go to church. Because that's the faith which martyrs died for? Mercifully the video ended, but not before another rendition of the opening song. It is important to have the words "we will shine" echo in your head as you prepare for the consecration at Mass. Poor little Emilie just couldn't stand the song. Lucky little Becca twice was able to remove her during the video. I thought about giving John Paul a pinch, and then also taking the crying little boy out, but we are now a family with three children, i.e. I couldn't justify leaving Joseph alone in the pew.

This sentimentality at Mass is a weak attempt at utilitarianism. Increase pleasure and good feelings. Decrease pain and unhappiness. The ironic thing is that the readings and Gospel of the day were not even mentioned in any homily, due to the video. What did the readings say? From 2 Timothy 1:

 "For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God."

And we will shiiiiiiiiine!

The other day on facebook those darn Jesuits, the Canadian edition, sponsored another ad onto my facebook wall. In it they were patting themselves on the back because they've decided, thanks to Pope Francis' Laudato Si, to divest themselves from all fossil fuel extraction investments within five years. I didn't even know what they meant. What investments are you speaking of, dear Society of Jesus? No matter. They proudly, to the point of paying money to advertise, proclaimed their sentimental decision. I replied with some honest questions. I asked whether or not they were also going to stop driving cars, flying in planes, or heating homes they live in? Their response? Their sponsored article appeared to get pulled, and up shot a new posting of the same article, but this time sans snarky Dan Millette commenting. I guess I hurt some feelings.

Yes, there is a sappiness which still pervades through the Church. So what? What can we do about it? It does not appear to be going anywhere. Is it not our own fault? We do not have the conviction of faith. We do not have the conviction to join with St. Paul "in suffering for the gospel." What we have is a desire to feel good feelings. To feel like we shine for others. Yet we know feelings betray us. I don't need to delve into what Aquinas says regarding emotions. We all know it. If we only did what felt good to us, where would we be? Certainly not sitting in a pew watching a BAA video. Truth must guide the Catholic life. Not feelings. Not sappiness. Not sentimentality.

I offer a parting shot, which goes straight to the top, courtesy of author/editor Carl E. Olson. He writes:

"... I am increasingly convinced that this papacy, for all of its strengths, weaknesses, and oddities, could well be known, down the road, as the Papacy of Sentimentality. It surely is not a papacy adhering to theological rigor or consistency. It wasn't long ago that Francis made news for telling some Polish Jesuits that 'in life not all is black on white or white on black. No! The shades of grey prevail in life.' But he is quite selective (and, I think, sentimental) in that regard. When it comes to marriage, sexuality, and family, there are apparently numerous shades of grey and very little that is clearly black and white. Thus, references to 'sin' are avoided. But when it comes to the environment and global warming, which Francis has strong emotions about, there appears to be plenty of black and white, and almost no grey at all. 'Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality,' warned Benedict XVI, 'Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way.' Mercy is not something that can be redefined in an arbitrary way, however good or appealing the sentiment involved."

And we will shine?

Not unless we wake up first.

Teach them Young

A little while back Joseph, who is homeschooled, sat down with his amazing teacher to learn a new poem.

The next day Becca went back to read the poem with Joseph. Thinking it'd take about a week to memorize, she asked Joseph to attempt the poem. Sure enough, Joseph rattled it off no problem. The only actual problem was that Becca had to race to look up the poem to see if he was reciting it properly. You know, because us adults can't remember much, but little kids can. They have impressive minds.

However, at this homeschool there is an often troublesome, yet secretly brilliant, little two year old who hangs around. Sure enough, not to be outdone, John Paul has started rattling off the poem as well. Impressive minds indeed. But what else could I expect from two boys who know all the words to such songs as Bobcaygeon, Up&Up, and just about anything else they hear?

Many people say to us: "Oh sure, it's great to keep them home for kindergarten! After all, it's only kindergarten!" And we're thinking: No! We are keeping Joseph home for kindergarten so we can actually stuff his mind this year, while he is so ready to learn!

Teach them young.