Woman at Prayer - 7, "Happiness"

Seventh in a series of articles from the booklet A Woman at Prayer by Rev. Conlith Overman, (1962)

ON PEACE OF MIND

There is a pearl of great price to be had.

Sermon on the Mount by Carl Bloch

Two eminent scholars in a book* make  much of the unhappiness of contemporary women. " Never before in the history of the world" say the writers, has there been more unhappiness among women. And this, they go on to state in an age when women's rights, freedom, the fem­inine suffrage have won the day. 

We shall not quarrel with these eminent schol­ars nor question their statistics, nor object to their solution of the problem. We mention the book to point up the fact that there are unhappy women  in the world today. 

What can be done about unhappiness?  Well, first we can understand whence comes unhappi­ness. In every case we find that the unhappy person is the victim of wrong emphasis. The person assigns too great a value to some one factor of human living; or undervalues some other factor that ought to be highly regarded. 

We can say that the unhappy person is out of touch with reality. She lives in a dream world, and the dreams turn out to be all nightmares. 

By way of illustration, suppose that a person feels that it is absolutely essential always to have her own way.  That is what she lives for.   She will not, as she boasts, play second fiddle to anybody. Can you imagine a more unhappy per­son?  To have one's way always is to want to be God; and that is impossible. 

We have said that unhappiness is the product of placing the wrong emphasis.  We can enum­erate several possibilities for this wrong em­phasis:  Material possessions,  power over our fel­lowmen, unlimited pleasures, worldly success, peace at the expense of principle.  Anybody who places too high a value on the items in this list   is courting unhappiness. 

Our Savior came into this world to show us the way to happiness, both in this life and in the life to come.  And thus at the beginning of his public ministry he gave us His 'formula for happiness.'  This formula is found in the fifth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel. It is com­monly known as the Eight Beatitudes. 

Instead of the colorless word "blessed," the original Greek text uses "makairos" which means happy.   So Christ actually said: "Happy are the poor of spirit ... Happy are the meek ... Happy are they that mourn . . . Happy are they who hunger and thirst after justice . . . Happy are the merciful ... Happy are the clean of heart... Happy are the peacemakers ... Happy are they who suffer persecution for justice' sake . . ." 

The Beatitudes are Christian points of empha­sis.  If we stress in our lives what Christ men­tions in the Beatitudes we will enjoy happiness.  There will be no confusion of mind for us.  We will know with the greater certitude of Faith what is best for us. 

*  There may have only been one book in 1960, but since then there have been thousands and after all the uproar of the feminist movement since then, nobody seems any happier.

Woman at Prayer - 6, "Self-deception"

ON FOOLING YOURSELF

The fool is the enemy principally of himself

The most dangerous kind of deception is self­-deception. At first sight it might seem impossible to fool oneself; but it is actually very easy. That's why the philosophers of Greece taught that the first step toward wisdom is know oneself; that's why the Saints of Christendom teach that humil­ity is the foundation of sanctity.

People are self-deceived because they want to be deceived. It is a bit painful to be stripped of our illusions and to face the truth. It seems more satisfactory to live in a world of haze and unreality. But it only seems more satisfactory; actually self-deception is a very great personal misfortune. Would you say that a person who does not feel the cold because of a slowly creeping paralysis is fortunate because he does not feel the cold?

There are several ways in which self-deception operates. Great quantities of people deceive them­selves by making religion a luxury. They pray in order to feel good; they go to church so that they may have the satisfaction of appearing pious; they give to charity so that they may have that "fine inner glow". Instead of being truly religious, they are rotten selfish.

Then there are the people who use religion for their own ends. They want to be big fish in their own little pond, so they jump into religious ac­tivity. They get to be head of sodalities and organizations. They work like Trojans; Ulysses cleaning the Aegean stables would seem to be resting compared to them; and their activity does more harm than good. They are hypocrites. They are promoting themselves and claiming credit for being servants of God.

Finally, there are those who tacitly adopt the principle that the end justifies the means. These people look so long at the reason that they have for doing something that they overlook the fact that the action is sinful. For instance, a woman who won't talk to her husband because he won't agree to buy a new house* may completely exonerate herself of any fault in her lack of duty to her spouse. "He's mean," she says over and over again until she has convinced herself that what she is doing is all right.

And in everyone of these cases of self-decep­tion the individual is hurting himself. The religion -is-a-luxury people grow lukewarm and frequently fall away from their fervor and even from their faith itself as soon as they feel that spiritual practices are burdensome; the self-promoters by ­religious-activity people become uncooperative and even enemies of the organization as soon as they can't have their own little way any longer; the it's-all-right-because-I'm-hurt people bring sorrow into the lives of everybody including their own.
Self-deception doesn't pay.  It is much better to be free of illusions. The suffering we do in facing the truth is much less than the pain and anguish that smashes us like the delayed action of a block buster. Therefore, we suggest two things: First, be unselfish; second, purify your intention constantly.

 Be unselfish. This is important because self-­deception is the product of selfishness. Think of God; love Him and work for Him in all your activities. It doesn't matter who does the work, or who gets the glory as long as the work gets done. You won't lose out ever by being unselfish.

Purify your intention constantly. Unworthy motives have a way of infiltrating our actions if we are not constantly alert. Even works that have been begun with a pure intention of glorifying God can be spoiled by a lowering of aim.

There is no better way of preparing for heaven than in striving not to deceive ourselves on earth.

*The original example was 'a new hat'.  I had to update that one!  In this day, we have much bigger aspirations.  "We've come a long way, Baby!"

How to Eat Like a Hobbit

You won't believe this, but I came across an article on How to Eat Like a Hobbit. What a fun idea!   It begins like this:

Wild strawberries by my woods

If there is one area of life most people can change in order to return to the Shire, in a metaphorical if not literal sense, it’s their eating habits. You can live in a 20-story high-rise in Manhattan or Paris and still adopt a Hobbit lifestyle when it comes to eating. That’s because Hobbits are different from most of the enslaved subjects of Mordor not only in what they eat… but also in how and why they eat it. Hobbits, along with most of the free peoples of Middle-earth, eat pure, naturally-grown, mostly wild foods from their own gardens or nearby fields: lush berries, fresh bread, cheese, cold meats, mushrooms (lots of those!), wine and beer. They eat frequently, usually in groups and often accompanied by poetry readings and songs. Hobbits are not vegetarians but they have a varied diet of whole, local foods, including Nimcelen, the hobbit version of potato salad; Soroname, a warm soup filled with pasta, meat, tomatoes, beans and onions; and Lembas, Elvish waybread. They drink wine and, when they can get it, such invigorating liquors as Ent-draughts and Miruvor, the life-giving and energizing elixir of the Elves. Food has a spiritual as well as a biological purpose for them.

It's a long article and gets a little political, but towards the end there is a section on practical suggestions that are interesting.  Just click here to read more.

Backwards day in the Shire -
 the moon was out before sunset

Tonight I ate like a Hobbit.  I made a pot of Leek and Barley soup that was mild (bland?), but pretty good.  This was the first time I remember using a leek so I looked up a tutorial on how to clean them.  They are notorious for being very dirty because of the way they grow, but once you know the trick, it isn't too bad of a job.

3 Tablespoons olive oil          1/3 cup parsley, minced
1 cup barley                           Salt to taste
1 carrot finely grated               7 cups water
2 leeks, sliced                         1 boullion cube (opt)
1 bay leaf                                chopped mushrooms (opt)

1. Heat oil and add barley, stir 1 minute.  Immediately add carrots, leeks, bay leaf,  parsley, salt and water.
2. Cook over low to medium heat for 40 to 45 minutes - until barley is tender.  Add more water if needed.
3.  Add optional ingredients during the last 20 minutes of cooking time.

After dinner, it was such a lovely evening, I decided to go for a stroll out  in the Shire. On the path along the woods  I found wild strawberries that were blossoming.  If  I go out every morning when the flowers are done and check for ripe berries, I might be able to get a few.  Usually the critters get there first, but I'm going to give it a try.

Golden sunset over the Shire-
 probably means rain tomorrow

Woman at Prayer - 5, "Liberty"

From the booklet A Woman at Prayer by Rev. Conleth Overman.
Editors note:  Vicious Circle was a popular term (usually just shortened to V.C.) around 1960 when people were beginning to feel that their lives were getting out of control.  .  Today we just are used to it.

Today's "V.C."

A vicious circle can turn life into a tread-mill

A vicious circle can turn life into a tread-mill. Every age has its own peculiar "V. C."   We have ours. It goes something like this:

People have no taste for the spiritual because they are so attracted by material things. They would learn to love the spiritual if they would make a real attempt to live a more spiritual life; but to live a more spiritual life they must cease being so preoccupied with the material.

What can be done to break up this vicious circle? Until people actually "taste and see that the Lord is good" they will not be sufficiently motivated to reduce their preoccupation with material things. And the attraction of the senses, of earthly satisfactions, hold them back from giv­ing the spiritual a try. Perhaps education will break the circle; perhaps people will accept the word of authority and make a beginning. If we could dispel the enchantment which material things throw over the human spirit for just a little while so that the individual

 could turn to God and experience the "joy of the Lord", that would do the trick.

View for Vespers on my deck Wednesday

Strange Inversion 

Isn't it strange that creatures are allowed to crowd out the Creator? We get so involved with the trinkets that God has made and given us that we forget the loving Father from whom they come.

Isn't that like us moderns? We have one big purpose in life: to develop spiritually. Food is to keep us alive, houses to shelter us, clothes to protect and adorn us, recreation to keep us in good health - all this while we work out our destiny of becoming saints. But what happens? We act like children who, when given an all-day sucker, ignore the candy and start chewing the stick.

Inner Attraction 

Whatever good there is in creatures to make us want them has been put there by God. God is the source of being, and beauty, and goodness. If creatures, then, have the power of making us happy, their infinite Creator has an infinitely greater power of giving us joy. Thus it was that the Psalmist cried out: "0 taste and see that the Lord is good; happy is the man that trusts in him." (PS. 34. 8)   The Holy Trinity dwells in the soul of every justified person; when you are in the state of Sanctifying Grace the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, are present to you in a special way.  Thomas Aquinas says that through the indwelling the Trinity is with you "to be enjoyed."

And what joy is not the infinite God able to impart to those that love Him!

My prayer corner

Why do not more of us enjoy the sweetness of our companionship with the three divine Persons of the Most Blessed Trinity? Because we are so seldom aware of their presence, because we so seldom turn inward to them, because our minds and hearts are fastened on a million trivialities. We are the slaves of creatures, and thus cannot enjoy the leisure of the children of God. Our greatest need, therefore, is

• simplicity in our liv­ing,
• self - denial in our pleasures,
• recollection throughout the day,
• and a spirit of detachment from material things. 

Only thus is liberty of spirit bought; only thus can we "taste and see that the Lord is good."

In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G.K. Chesterton

Available : American Chesterton Society

I've been  buying a Chesterton book a month and this was my April book.  From the title you might think it a psychological treatise, but it's not.  It's a collection of 67 essays on everything under the sun.

SIXTY-SEVEN essays, you say?  Considering that he wrote over 5000, it was hard to pick out only 67 to represent the best. That's what three Chesterton scholars, Dale Ahlquist, Aidan Mackey, and Joseph Pearce say in their intros to the work  I think they did a good job in choosing.  There were some I had already read and some that have never been printed before.  The variety of topics is astounding:  skeletons, cheese, chalk, fireworks, rain, literary critcism and so much more.

Of special interest to me was "On certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family", "The Drift from Domesticity", "Marriage and the Modern Mind","The Romance of Childhood", "What is Right with the World" and "Babies and Distributism".  They may sound a little dull, but they are full of witty phrases and surprises.  Reading Chesterton is like taking a mental jog.

The best essay in my opinion is "Twelve Men".  It is about jury duty and should be required reading in civics classes, but probably couldn't be used because it has religious overtones.

Several of the essays are just completely charming.  "The Romantic in the Rain"  has me wanting to throw away my umbrella and get a "mackintosh" and go out to join the downpour.  "{The rain} gives the roads....something of the beauty of Venice.  Shallow lakes of water reiterate every detail of earth and sky....the sense of a Celestial topsy-turvydom.....It will always give a man the strange sense of looking down at the skies".

"What I Found in my Pocket" has G.K. stranded at a station with nothing to read, not even posters on the wall.  So, he amuses himself with the things in his pockets.  In another essay, "Cheese" ( a subject on which "poets have been mysteriously silent" )   has finally been treated with the dignity it deserves.

My favorite, though, is "A Piece of Chalk".  In it, G.K. takes a box of colored chalk and some brown paper borrowed from his landlady and goes out for a hike into the countryside:

"I crossed one swell of living turf after another, looking for a place to sit down and draw.  Do not, for heaven's sake, imagine I was going to sketch from Nature.  I was going to draw devils and seraphim, and blind old gods that men worshipped before the dawn of right, and saints in robes of angry crimson, and seas of strange green and all the sacred or monstrous symbols that look so well in bright colors on brown paper.  They are so much better worth drawing than Nature;  also, they are much easier to draw.  When a cow came slouching by in the field next to me, a mere artist might have drawn it; but I always get wrong in the hind legs of quadrepeds.  So I drew the soul of the cow;  which I saw there plainly walking before me in the sunlight;  and the soul was all purple and silver, and had seven horns and the mystery that belongs to all the beasts."

 He then discovers that his box of chalk has no white, which everyone knows you really, really need when drawing on brown paper!  How he solves this dilemma is amusing.

More amazing than the variety of topics is the continuity of Chesterton's thought that ties everything together.   As it says on the back cover of the book:  "Here is a veritable feast for the mind and the soul".

J.R.R. Tolkien, the Shire, and Me

The other day I watched a dramatization of a conversation between J.R.R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis and some other comments from Tolkien about his work.  "Of course, you know,"  he said "that being born in 1892 means that I was born in the 'Shire'."    Yes, of course he was.  And I spent my childhood with many people who were also born in the 1800's and continued to live with the sane world of the Shire all around them even though the world in the 1900's progressed as fast as it could to insanity.

The Shire is the place where home and family are the center of everything - where life is lived as if people mattered.

It is where the young are nurtured and protected until they are prepared to 'leave the nest and fly on their own'.  It is a place of games and fun and parties.  It is a place hidden away from the grossness of the ways of the world.  (Think Mordor).

The Shire is nestled in a natural setting with a love of nature and the care of it being interwoven into the daily lives of all who live there.

It is a place of ideals - love of neighbor, love of country, love of God.  It is where duty, self-sacrifice, fair play, and honesty are respected and are not laughed at.

I love the 'Shire'.  I have longed for it, tried to hang on to it, worked to build it into my own life.  The pictures and poems on my sidebar and in my posts are some of the many things that  invoke the memory of the Shire to me. Some would say that the literature I read and the writing I do is just nostalgia;  but I know that it is a search for truth and the true way of living in a world gone mad.

A Woman at Prayer - 4, "Values"

4th in a series of meditations from A Woman at Prayer by Rev. Conleth Overman

ON SARDINE CANS

Thought given to values can save worlds of grief.

  picture from pinnacleworldwide.co.uk

There is a story told of a missionary in the South Sea Islands. The only way that he could win the good will of the natives was by practicing medicine. It so happened that the son of the Island chief fell ill of pneumonia. When the witch doctors seemed unable to break the spell of the disease, the chief called for the missionary. His sound medical treatment saved the child. The chief was immensely pleased and, in his gratitude, determined to give the missionary the tribe's most precious possession. On the day determined amid great pomp and ceremony the object most treasured was presented to the missionary. He could scarce keep from laughing: The treasure of the tribe was a sardine can!

Perhaps this never happened; this story may be only a modern parable. But it carries a pointed lesson.   How many of us are like those South Sea Islanders in our over-valuation of the things we possess. Very few of us do not have our "sardine cans." 

Values to be Examined

Much confusion is introduced into women's lives by wrong values. To esteem a trifle as a treasure is the way to be unhappy. Why go to a lot of trouble to do what is not worth doing?  The poet Lowell pointed out the tragedy of wrong values when he wrote the lines:  "In the devil's booth all things are sold;  trifles are bought with a whole souls tasking." *   It would do us all a great deal of good if from time to time we would sit ourselves down and examine our values. It may be that we think too much of material possessions. Do we work and skimp and save so that we can buy more clothes, another appliance, new furniture?  The possession of these things is not in itself a virtue. They may not be worth the bother involved. Someone recently spoke of people who are "so busy making a career that they have no time to live."  That could be applied to many of us; we are so busy getting things for ourselves that we stop living.

Keeping up with the Joneses, staying abreast of every fad, trying to own each new product as the persistent advertisers cram it down our throats - all of this runs us ragged.  Life becomes a merry-go-round, a rat race, as a result of setting up erroneous values.

Christ's Clarification

Our  Lord gave us a yard-stick for measuring the true values of everything: . "What does it profit a man,". He said, "if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul? Or, what would a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matt. 16:26)

In a well-ordered life the spiritual is most es­teemed.  We were put in life to achieve a spiritual destiny. Therefore things of the spirit - prayer, church services, the Sacraments, love of God and neighbor, doing God's will - are most precious because they directly contribute to our success in life. Material things have their uses it is true, but their value is relative.  Only if material things really contribute to our soul's development are they worth bothering about. Once we learn this truth we'll throw out all the "sardine cans" that are cluttering up our life. 

*James Russell Lowell, The Vision of Sir Launfal