Spiritual Memoirs

I have loved books from the time I was a small child. Given that I'm a librarian, I'm certain this is no surprise. Books hold treasure for me in ways that other social activities do not; at least, not in the same way. Books have excitement and mystery, inside glimpses into the lives and private emotions of others. Frankly, the lives of others whose day-to-day happenings are much more interesting than mine :)

But I have always been in love with books. I'm always reading one. Always. I love playing with a new one when I get it fresh from Amazon or from the library; flipping it over, reading the back cover and flaps, paging through it, looking at included photographs. I even like the way books smell.

My book habit has always been expensive to maintain (hey, it's a vice, but I maintain that it's much more wholesome than other vices one could have :) so, given that we're down to one income, plus we have a little mouth to feed, I've taken to requesting most of the books I read from our local public library. I'm loving this new system. I usually read 1-2 books per week, so this public library angle has really come in handy.

My genre of choice in recent years has been religious non-fiction, particularly personal spiritual memoirs. Despite my addiction to reading, I've never been a fan of real heavy, academic books on religious studies. As soon as deep, theological arguments get underway, my eyes start to cross and I begin to skim. I like personal narratives. Stuff about real people and the spiritual journeys and challenges they face. I do read a lot of books authored by Catholics, but I really read a lot of spiritual memoirs by members of other faiths, non-Catholic Christian and Jewish. The books I'm reading right now is excellent, written by a female Jewish rabbi, I promise to devote a whole post to it when I'm finished :)

Lately, my consumption of religious memoirs has reached a fevered pitch. I've been getting an excellent selection of titles from the library (check out my LibraryThing library for specifics). Most recently, I went to pick up my holds, and the librarian actually arched an eyebrow at me: "you have 4 books here; do you want them all now?" I'm still well within the 3 week borrowing period, and I'm on book #4. Yes, I'm a book nerd, what can I say?

This has all gotten me to thinking: I wonder if I should write one myself one day? I'm a private person, so writing makes me feel "exposed" sometimes. But obviously I like to write, just based on this blog alone. This blog has given my latent writing desires room to grow and be creative in a way that I haven't been since high school. I'm very grateful for that. It seemed that I went to law school and although that experience honed my writing skills in a good way, all of my creativity was sucked out. I never had the desire to write for pleasure again until very recently.

Besides the private thing, I also don't have anything particularly dramatic in my spiritual story. No eclectic conversion to Wicca or ancient Celtic spirituality and then back to my Catholic roots, or something cool like that :) So we'll see. But my writing desires, previously neutralized to mandatory library literature, are back in full force. We'll see what happens :)

Heading home for a long weekend...

I'm tired, so this is good. I think I'm getting old :) I have lots of good library books in my possession (more to be picked up on my way home from work, too...) so there will lots of reading. I think I'd like to start posting reviews of what I read over at my LibraryThing page, so check there for recommendations :) I can't believe what a book nerd I am. My life would literally come undone if I had nothing to read. I can't even imagine such an apocalyptic event as not being able to read; it's right up there with swarms of locusts coming to consume us all. It's too upsetting to even contemplate.

At any rate, I'm headed home to grill turkey burgers and make brown rice before heading to bellydance. My hip circles are pretty rusty.

Favorite student quote...

of my evening reference shift last night. After spending ten minutes patiently explaining some of the material in a required library tutorial, my protege says:

"oh. I see now. I didn't read the directions."

Amen. This is the epitome of my existence as an academic librarian :)

My personal library catalog

So, I'm tremendously excited. I'm working an evening reference shift, and in between explaining to students that the library does not have a personal copy of their textbooks just waiting for their hot little hands to snap up (seriously - 200 plus other students are in your class shelling out over $100 for the textbook, and somehow *you* are going to snag that one magical, free copy at the library and horde it for the entire semester? Think about this before approaching the reference desk, crumpled syllabi in hand, iPod headphones still in ears, cell phone in other hand, dialing your significant other, whom you will inevitably break up with, via cell phone, in the reference collection stacks right outside my office door 3 months from now) I've been brainstorming on how to catalog what I read. I'd like to keep track, plus it will give others (you :) the chance to find some recommendations should you share any of my reading interests. I played around with blogger's gadgets for a bit, and then had a eureka moment. LibraryThing! Right now, I'm working on creating my profile and library of titles, and as soon as it's finished, I will obtain the widget that will allow me to link to it from this blog. I bet you're excited :)

So, what I'm going to do is not add books that are already in my collection at home, but the titles that I'm reading as the year goes on. I inevitably re-read all of my owned favorites anyway, so they'll make their way on there. I can also write book reviews on there, rate them, and get other suggestions on stuff to read. This is making my librarian hormones go into an excited overdrive.

Ugly churches, take two

So, continuing on my central Florida theme, this is a great opportunity to delve back into the arena of modern church architecture. This is found in abundance on each of my trips to this region. The church that my mother-in-law attends, St. Ann's, definitely falls into this category. Each time I go, I scratch my head at what new things about it bother me. Now, I need to clarify that of course attending Mass is the most important thing, regarless of the beauty (or lack thereof) in the church building itself. That being said, I find modern churches harder for me to enjoy worshipping in. It's just a personal preference.

So anyway, what I dislike about St. Ann's is manyfold. Is that a word? Anyway, it's large and pointy and sort of vacuous. Here's a particular pet peeve: it has *abstract* stained glass. Isn't the point of stained glass to tell the Gospel story? Sigh. Not sure what is up with this, but bulletins aren't left out in the open so that just any Catholic librarian can snap one up while coming into Mass for perusual during the collection. They're squirreled away and then doled out after Mass by the ushers. Why? Don't they trust us to not read them during the homily? But the thing that bothers me the most about this church layout is that the tabernacle isn't at the front. It's in the back, in the daily Mass chapel. This bothers me quite a bit. The Eucharist is a central part of our faith, and it should be central in our worship spaces.

Those are the constants. Each time I go to Mass there, I notice something else. Like this time, when I went to Mass for the feast of Mary, Mother of God. We go in, sit down, attempt to pray. Suddenly, we're interrupted by the music director, guitar in hand:

"ok everybody, the opening hymn is going to be 'God is With Us,' Number 553 in your hymnals. Let's practice the opening verse together."

I won't relay what went through my head, because it was most uncharitable. I don't want to practice hymns before Mass unless I'm in the choir, particularly not when they're being led by a guitar. Guitars in other contexts are fine, but I loathe them in Mass. And I really don't want to be coaxed to sing by a bossy music director.

The following Saturday evening, Mike and I were going to dinner in another town, so chose to find a church nearer the restaurant where we could attend the vigil. Well holy smokes. We pull up, and Mike says "oh look, there it is." I look up, and swear to God, I averted my eyes. This church was so ugly, it was like I had seen something disturbing. I may have actually shuddered. The inside was even worse. Abstract stained glass abounded, and the entire shebang looked like a convention center. I couldn't find the holy water fonts, and then realized I was supposed to have used the immersion baptismal pool for these purposes. And this isn't architecture-related, but Florida-related: it was so bloody cold from the a/c, the pages of my Missal were blowing in the artificially forced breeze. It was 70 degrees outside; why on *earth* would we need air conditioning? We're not polar bears.

Anyway, the liturgy was actually quite nice, I was pleasantly surprised. No bossy music director in sight. Just a simple organist with a trio of excellent singers. Given that it was the Epiphany, there was a holographic star up above the altar, which I rolled my eyes at. The priest made a really good joke though about the star, saying he feared he was having a vision when he first saw it. "You do also see this star, don't you?!"

So, ugly church #2 in fact turned out better than I would have anticipated. I just don't understand why "new" always has to be translated into "modern." I go by the "if it isn't broke, don't fix it" mentality.

My Florida journey

As I've mentioned in the past, in contrast to most everyone else I've ever met, especially in the area in which I'm located in the Northeast, I'm not a huge fan of central Florida. I will grant, I live in a place in which winters are long and cold, and we are on the receiving end of a lot of snow. If it's not a foot or more of accumulation, it's not even newsworthy. But I'm just going to out myself: I like snow. I like the winter. My wedding anniversay is January 8th; this says a lot about me. I love the stark, barren beauty of the winter and then appreciate the first buds of spring. I'm a seasons girl; I never want to live in a place where the weather is the same year round. Particularly central Florida, although the weather is not the same there year round. The weather there is either pleasant or it's excruciating. Not a lot of in between. Plus, there's altogether too many strip plazas in central Florida, and not enough sidewalks. Doesn't anybody walk anywhere down there? I'm thinking not, judging by the sheer number of golf carts that nearly mowed me down. But I digress; Florida obviously isn't bad, it just isn't for the Catholic Librarian.

However, one thing that I truly appreciate about Florida is the birds. I saw some fabulous birds there, things that I would never get to see in the Northeast. So, allow me to pictorially elaborate.

We went to the beach for lunch one day (a 70 mile round trip journey; this is fairly commonplace when we visit this region :) and I can't say I was looking forward to it. Being in the car that much makes the Catholic Librarian nauseous. But anyway, after lunch, we walked down to the beach. I saw some shorebirds there that simply made my day. The first, I expected. They were Laughing Gulls:

I know, I know, all gulls look the freaking same, don't they? These guys actually usually look identifiably different. When they're breeding, in the summer, they have dark hoods: Where I'm from, we see a lot of gulls, but not these Laughing Gulls, so I'm always happy to glimpse them. So, I'm standing on the beach, admiring the gulls, when my little eye spies some small birds down the shore line. A quick look in my binoculars seals the deal: these are birds that I've never seen before. Translation: I mumble a quick explanation to Mike and my in-laws and race down the shore line like a maniac, dodging pokey people in my wake. I get down near the bird flock, and attack with my binoculars. What I see are the cutest birds I've ever seen before in my *life*. They were Semipalmated Plovers: I mean, did you ever?! They were so cute, I actually squealed at the sight of their sheer adorableness. They were pecking at the sand, and whenever the tide rolled in, the whole flock of them would gather their feathers up, and scamper up the sand away from the water as fast as their skinny little legs would carry them. They were so cute I could hardly stand it.

Seriously. Who could resist this face? So, as you can tell, I loved the plovers. Suddenly, beneath me I sensed a scampering. I looked down to see a smaller bird hustling around me. Being an amateur birder, I'm easily overwhelmed by multiple new species. I just remember thinking to myself "is he different? I think he's different!!" I immediately (like the true nerd that I am) whipped out my little birding notebook to write down all his details for later identification. He was smaller and lighter, and was clearly on a mission in the sand. His skinny little legs were pumping overtime as he hustled about. He wasn't bothered by the tide like those wimpy plovers :) I eventually deduced that this bird was a Western Sandpiper:I liked him *very* well indeed. I think the plovers were my favorite though; I wanted to pick one up, kiss it, and tuck it into my purse for transportation home. I'm thinking airport security wouldn't have liked this too much.

Another bird that I see each time I go to central Florida are Sandhill Cranes. These are magnificently graceful large birds that actually mate for life.

When one is eating or otherwise distracted, his/her mate very stoicly keeps watch. They're truly beautiful birds to observe.

I also caught glimpses of a few wood warbler species. Yellow-rumped Warbler:

And the Palm Warbler:

These guys are tough to pin down. They're teeny tiny, and constantly bounce around in leafy trees, frustrating Catholic librarians everywhere and causing them to swear in a most unladylike manner. But your Catholic Librarian isn't easily dissuaded, so damn it, those birds were going to get in the purview of her binoculars. Truly, I enjoyed it. I'm working madly to hone my skills before the big spring migration, when once again you will be subjected to lengthy posts about birds.

I think I'm getting sick...

Yucky. I feel lethargic and real sore. I have an odd stiff neck, and just want to go home and sip tea in bed. And whine. Thusly, I promise to write more on Monday when I'm feeling better.

A fall from grace...

Last night, I went to work installing 2 new car seats for Hank in my and Mike's car, since Hank outgrew his other seats by weight. Apparently, the true test of if you want your child to be safe is if your hands are sufficiently bruised and bloody after working on this project. I was assigned to this task because of the two of us, I declared myself to be more patient than Mike. How the mighty have fallen. A slew of profanity, several losses of temper, and a couple of profane gestures later, the car seats are in. Now, I just have to worry about uninstalling the f-ing things again in the spring when Hank gets taller and I need to adjust the harness slots again. Things are never dull around our household in the evenings, I tell you.

Catholic podcast update

Ok, so I tested a few of those rosary podcasts that I mentioned last week. There are tons of Catholic podcasts out there, just check out sqpn. I'm liking "Catholic in a Small Town," considering subscribing. Anyway, we'll see. But for the rosary, I test drove two different podcasts. The first was a generic one I found on iTunes called "Pray the Rosary" by Don Crescenzo. What I liked about it is that it is very straightforward, mowing right through the mysteries, no long meditations. I'm not exactly a mystic, as you can tell. Problem was, you could barely hear it. Keep in mind, most everything that I own is *old*. I do have an iPod, but I have a 2000 Honda Civic that requires an fm transmitter to play the music on my iPod. I love my fm transmitter, but as would be expected, I get a lot of interference and scratchy background noise at times. And with this guy whispering the rosary, it doesn't exactly bode well for me being able to follow along. So, I unsubscribed :) Next, I tried The Rosary Army's version, accessible through A Catholic iPod. The name of the web site alone made me pretty amenable to trying it. And, so far, so good. There are meditations, but they are short. And I like how the prayers are recited as one person saying the beginning, with another following up and you joining in, like you would normally say a rosary in community. The first podcast I tried was just that one guy, quietly saying all the prayers, and it just sounded odd. So, I downloladed all 4 of the mysteries of the rosary, created a rosary playlist, and here I am, content as could be.

Finally back from vacation...

I'll post more later, but I had to relate Hank's funniest line in some time. We were out for a walk yesterday, happily reveling in our cold weather (after the banal-ness of central Florida; sorry, had to say it :)while trying to avoid slipping and breaking our necks on the icy sidewalks. Hank announces: "Mommy, I have to go potty!!" Sigh. We're several blocks from home. I tell him we're almost home, and we pick up the pace. "But I HAVE TO GO POTTY." Clearly, this isn't going well. "Honey, you're going to have to hold it. We'll be home soon." "But I *can't* hold it mommy! I'm wearing gloves!!"