Friday Five: Fire and Water

This might qualify as a Friday + Five, as it's almost been 5 days since it was posted.

revhrod poses these RGBP Friday Fives:

In this Sunday's gospel Nicodemus asks Jesus, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Poor old Nicodemus! He was so confused about the whole "water and Spirit" business of baptism.

For today's five, tell us about your baptismal experiences.

1. When and where were you baptized? Do you remember it? Know any interesting tidbits?
I was baptized on April 20th, 1958 at the age of 8 days! I don't remember it :-), but I do have this wonderful photo of me with my mother and her mother. The gown is the same one all my siblings were baptized in, and the slip, embroidered with all our names and the dates our baptisms has been worn by most of the grandchildren at their baptisms. The saddest thing I think is that my mother was never present at any of her children's baptisms, since medical advice at the time was that she should stay "in the house" and rest (?).

2. What's the most unexpected thing you've ever witnessed at a baptism?
I see a lot (given that we baptize at Mass), but nothing spectacular comes to mind. For humor, see #3.

3. Does your congregation have any special traditions surrounding baptisms?
We baptize as part of the regular Sunday service (less common in Catholic parishes), and begin by singing the Litany of the Saints (and other holy folks) down upon them. We all renew our baptismal vows. We all vow to support the parents in their path. The sense that these children are being baptized into a community of faith is strengthened by these customs. My better half enjoys the question we ask the parents each time: Do you understand what you are undertaking? His take on this - no way do any of these new parents have a clue what they're embarking on!!

4. Are you a godparent or baptismal sponsor? Have a story to tell?
I'm a godmother several times over, but am still in shock that two of my goddaughters are now in college!! I can't be old enough?

5. Do you have a favorite baptismal song or hymn?
The sung litany of saints is my favorite, a potent reminder of a community that extends through both space and time. Crash loves it - since his given name appears early; Barnacle Boy is irritated since "his" saint has been purged from the calendar as a pious legend.

Friday Five: Books!

Revhrod at RevGalBlogPals wonders what the really good books in our lives are. And having taken BesoMami's reading challenge on, I'm thinking about writing about reading...


What book have you read in the last six months that has really stayed with you? Why?
Mary Oliver's Thirst. Two poems in particular from that collection have stuck with me. The first lines of Six Recongnitions of Our Lord:

I know a lot of fancy words.
I tear them from my heart and my tongue.
Then I pray.

and of Heavy:

The time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying

I went closer,
and I did not die.

What is one of your favorite childhood books?
I may regret admitting this in public, but The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I first read it in a frigid Illinois winter, where I was walking to school thinking of the little girl walking in the snow with no shoes. And the marvelous comeuppance that comes the way of Miss Minchkin.

Do you have a favorite book of the Bible? Do tell!
The psalms are in my very bones.

What is one book you could read again and again?
The Psalms. :-) My comfort reading actually moves around, right now when I need something predictably soothing and humorous, I tend to pick up something in Lois Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series (A Civil Campaign is on my bedside table at the moment). They make me laugh and remind me of my brothers (and their well meaning, but somewhat quirky senses of humor).


Is there a book you would suggest for Lenten reading? What is it and why?
The Psalms. :-) Sorry, I couldn't resist. St. Benedict's Toolbox: The Nuts And Bolts Of Everyday Benedictine Living by Jane Tomaine, an Episcopal priest. The book grew out of her work in her parish and her doctoral dissertation, so it's grounded well in pastoral practice, tradition and prayer. Looking for a Lenten discipline? The focus is on how we can answer the calls to obedience, hospitality, stability and conversion of life outside the monastic enclosure. I gave it to my brother a couple of years ago when he was in the last stages of joining the Episcopal Church and asked me for something that would offer practical advice on living out God's call to us in our everyday lives. He chose to say the short version of Morning Prayer that is included - still does as far as I know. I won't reveal precisely where he says it, but it's one of the few places that a parent of young boys can find privacy in the morning!

Friday Five: It's my party

RevGals' Mother Laura is having a birthday soon. Cathy already had one this year. Mine is going to be a big one. So, Math Man, take note....

1. When is your birthday? Does anyone else (famous and/or in your own life) share it?

My birthday is April 12. My brother, Geek Guru, was born two years and two days later, so we don't quite share, but there's was definite "birthday" feel to mid-April when I was growing up. This year is a "decade" year in my family. Someone will turn 10, 20, 40, 50, 60, 80 and 90. I would be the median age in the list!

2. Do you prefer a big party or an intimate celebration for the chosen few?

A nice dinner with a few friends.

3. Describe your most memorable birthday(s)--good, bad, or both.

My 2nd birthday is my first vivid memory that I can date. I can see all the people walking up the steps of the house we lived in in Naperville, some carrying gifts. My birthday had been a few days before, and I thought I was getting another party. Actually, what I was getting was a new baby brother. I'm sure I'd been told that, but since in those days kids didn't even see their sibs through nursery windows, I suspect I didn't have a great grasp on the concept. I was seriously dissappointed. Probably grounds for years of therapy!

A gorilla bearing champagne appeared in my office on my 30th birthday. I wouldn't come out into the hall, where colleagues and students were gathered, so the gorilla picked me up and carried me out. I was blushing!

My 40th birthday was also Easter Sunday - a first in my lifetime. (Three times when I was a kid, my birthday fell on Good Friday - a day of fast. If you do the math in 1., you realize that my brother's birthday in those years fell on Easter - jealous, me?? Nah!) I was totally distracted from the turning 40 bit by a horrific case of pink-eye I had (courtesy of my students, it was epidemic on local campuses that spring).

4. What is your favorite cake and ice cream? (Bonus points if you share the cake recipe). Or would you rather have a different treat altogether?

Oh...Rainbow Cake. Make an angel food cake (or use a mix!). Take 1/2 the batter, divide into several small bowls and using food coloring, tint the batter various shades. Spoon the untinted batter and the tinted batter into a tube pan, making random patterns. When cut, the cake will have a festive splatter of shades. Here's a link to a more elaborate version (I like the little packages on top, though!).

5. Surprise parties: love 'em or hate 'em?

I've never had one - so I'll withhold judgement! But I definitely enjoy little surprises..the year I turned 38, I was expecting Barnacle Boy and had gestational diabetes - no cake for me. A friend appeared in my class, bearing a colorful plate of Jello-Jigglers -all sugar free, so I could celebrate!

Bonus: Describe your ideal birthday--the sky's the limit.

A beautiful spring day with a walk. Rainbow cake. A really rare steak.

RGBP Friday Five: Stress Busters

...how do you deal with the stress monster!!!???
1. First, and before we start busting stress, what causes you the most stress, is it big things or the small stuff ?
It the rate of "stuff" happening that does me in. If I've got a moment to take a breath in between stressors, it's less likely to cause brain implosion.

2. Exercise or chocolate for stress busting ( or maybe something else) ? Laughter! Exercise followed by chocolate runs a close second. In true desperation, Crash's brain sucker (guaranteed to provoke serious giggling, if not outright guffawing).

3.What is your favourite music to chill out to?Something I can sing along to...that makes me breathe deeply. Or something off my "calm" playlist if I can't sing.

4. Where do you go to chill?
Right where I am now, the huge chair in my bedroom. Windows open if the weather permits, listening to the trees rustle likes waves on the shore.

5. Extrovert or introvert, do you relax at a party, or do you prefer a solitary walk? INTJ, that's me. So that would be a walk - all by myself. At a recent family gathering, my attempts to walk the hills alone one evening were met with "Just let me get my shoes..." and "Oh, are you going for a walk? I'll be right there!" Thankfully I can say, "Not tonight, dear!"

Bonus- share your favourite stress busting tip!
Find something to laugh at, yourself if you can....

RGBP Friday Five: Time-tested talents

The RGBP Friday Five plumbs tests and talents....

1. Personality tests; love them or hate them?

It's a love-hate relationship? I like to remind my husband that I'm an introvert, citing my Meyers-Briggs, and that I need time alone to refuel periodically. Then again, one of the members of my community lives by the light of the Meyers-Briggs, it's nearly the first question she asks of someone. Every once in a while I get the urge to peel off the virtual INTJ sticker she's applied to me and do something really outrageously E or P. But I'm too much of an INTJ....

2. Would you describe yourself as practical, creative, intellectual or a mixture ?

A friend once called me a practical mystic, a description I've grown to be more comfortable with over the years.

3. It is said that everyone has their 15 minutes of fame; have you had your yet? If so what was it, if not dream away what would you like it to be?

I'm having 15 seconds of fame today! An op-ed I wrote on the pleasures of silence appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

4. If you were given a 2 year sabatical ( oh the dream of it) to create something would it be music, literature, art.....something completely different...share your dream with us...

Next year I get 9 mos (or a year if I can swing it), so I'm already dreaming! Write a draft of a book? Make the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius? Prove a new math theorem? Make and bind art books?? Help! Too many choices...

5. Describe a talent you would like to develop, but that seems completely beyond you.

Drawing. I would love to be able to sketch what I see.

Bonus question: Back to the church- what does every member ministry mean to you? Is it truly possible to encourage/ implement?

I think it's possible to grow it, but you have to be terribly patient, and water it constantly. I suspect it has much to do with recognizing the "quiet" gifts (those who pray, those who work behind the scenes to wash the linens, those who put the chairs back) as just that: gifts and talents that the community needs as much or more as it does lovely flowers, good singing and inspiring preaching. To those who say they are too busy (caring for an elderly parent, raising kids, working), invite them to pray for the particular needs of the community and the world. Ask them to commit a certain amount of time a week, just as they might to a more "active" ministry.

RGBP Friday Five: Books, books and more books!

As long as I have a book to read I'm happy. There is always one "emergency book" stashed in my car and my purse. Just in case I'm ever stuck in a snow storm, or in an emergency room. I got caught without reading material twice in such circumstances, and it was so painful each time that I learned that I need this more than I need lipstick in my bag. The first time was in the ER with a two-year old who had an open fracture of his hand. On Christmas Eve. The hand surgeon was (where else) in surgery, so we had to "hang out" in the ER until Crash could be evaluated, and the hand repaired. The only kids book (or any book for that matter) they could scrounge up for us was the classic (and apparently it is a classic, but not one I'd known or would come to love) Scuffy the Tugboat. I read it over and over and over again to my drugged pre-schooler. I was ready to scream by the end, or demand the same drugs they were giving him!

1. Fiction what kind, detective novels, historical stuff, thrillers, romance????

Truth? Science fiction and period mysteries. A favorite SF series is about Miles Vorkosigan, who is short and smart. I can relate.

2. When you get a really good book do you read it all in one chunk or savour it slowly?

I used to down it in one go, but of late have enjoyed savoring them.

3. Is there a book you keep returning to and why?

Not so much any one, but I do know that when I'm stressed I tend to re-read fiction that I've enjoyed in the past.

4. Apart from the Bible which non-fiction book has influenced you the most?

Two? One fiction, one not. In This House of Brede, by Rumer Goden and Lady with a Spear, the biography of marine biologist Eugenie Clark.

5. Describe a perfect place to read. ( could be anywhere!!!)
Up a tree! My favorite reading tree is in the photo. It's an enormous beech tree that has a cleft shaped like an easy chair. I bring a book, a thermos of iced tea and a towel (to pad the branch), and climb up into the cool, rustling branches for an afternoon's read. Last time I took my camera up with me. Alas the tree is too far from my home base to be a regular reading spot, but it is downright perfect. Particularly since no one can find me once I'm up there!