Sweet Names

Little did I know when I started calling my husband, "Honey," in our early years of marriage that the name would stick. My first baby became "Sweetheart" early, and Sweetheart she remains. My second baby became "Babe," giving our family a glimpse into his baseball future. My third baby became "Spunky," then morphed into "Little Man" and now has reverted back to "Spunky." The name fits.

With our current baby, I call him "Chunky Monkey" and "Hunk a Chunk a Burnin' Love" and any combination of the two. I was tempted to call him "Fang" when his top teeth came in, not with the usual top two first but with the teeth on either side first. I thought better.

It's funny. These sweet names aren't interchangeable. I don't call my husband Sweetheart and definitely won't call my daughter Chunk. I wonder if the names will stick. I wonder what other names will arise and fit in the future. For more on terms of endearment, check out "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" by Elizabeth Foss.

Have a blessed Sunday.

More on Pegs

Lissa has done a fabulous job of explaining family organizational pegs while also giving credit toLeonie for first sharing this concept with the CCM list. Thank you, Lissa and Leonie!

Here are two of my previous posts about how pegs work in our day and help us pray.

Sacrifice and May 19th Family Activity Suggestion

I've had a general post in my draft box about the othercott to The Da Vinci Code for two weeks. Now I know why I didn't post it earlier. I just heard that one of my dearly loved ones is tempted to see TDVC. My general post has just gotten personal.

Sacrifice it. Yes, "Curious," sacrifice seeing TDVC. Why? Because it is the right thing to do. It really is that simple.

I'll let others explain the nitty gritty of why TDVC is a "frontal assault on Jesus Christ and all of Christianity" according to Teresa Tomeo, Host of Catholic Connection. You'll appreciate their thorough and intelligent research. I'll speak to you. I know you love movies. I also know that you enjoy being in the know and in the now. But I also know that you have worked so hard to straighten your path and seek the truth. This is a perfect opportunity for you to sacrifice.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church,

2099
It is right to offer sacrifice to God as a sign of adoration and gratitude, supplication and communion: "Every action done so as to cling to God in communion of holiness, and thus achieve blessedness, is a true sacrifice."16

Not only is this an opportunity to sacrifice, it is an opportunity to trust the Catholic Church and to trust fully evangelized Catholics to speak the truth about this movie.

Here's an idea. I know a way that you can see a good movie AND have fun with your family AND avoid having to discuss this topic with me ever again. The movie, Over the Hedge is getting good reviews and just so happens to be opening on the same day as TDVC.

Sony and Dan Brown urge us to SEEK THE TRUTH! I wholeheartedly agree. Let's seek...

...whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Seek...and find...the Truth. You bet!

Open to Life

The area of the heart where I have grown most in clarity since my reversion to the Catholic Church is in openness to life. This is largely due to the wonderful families that I have come to know through online friendships and local Catholic homeschooling families. In Elizabeth Foss' article, In Praise of Big Families, you can see an example of the loving hearts and clear minds that have highly influenced me. Lovingly said and lived, Elizabeth.

In her article, Elizabeth quotes another friend, Bridget,

It is hard to explain to a young couple just starting out or even to an older couple who has not had this openness how married love can grow from the challenges of many children. Indeed, the openness may be key here, rather than the actual numbers of children. The openness is up to us, the number is up to God.

Lovingly said and lived, Bridget.

Last week I had a follow-up conversation with a new friend at a local Catholic homeschooling event. Previously, Christy had told me that her family was caring for her husband's grandmother at home. The grandmother was in hospice care, facing the end of her life. Now Christy informed me that grandma had responded so well to being in their loving home care that grandma is no longer with hospice, which according to these experts means she is no longer looking at near death. Christy went on to tell me that she quit her part-time job to be more available to grandma. She talked about the privilege of caring for grandma and shared with me tender and funny ways that the family helped grandma to receive their care and keep her pride in tact. With a pretty smile, she told me that caring for grandma fits right in with being the mother of four young children. Then she quipped, "You could say that we're open to the END of life, and what that brings to a family." Lovingly said and lived, Christy.

Lack of Love

Or Pope says low birth rate is due mainly to lack of love.

It is children and young people who are often the first to experience the consequences of this eclipse of love and hope. Often, instead of feeling loved and cherished, they appear to be merely tolerated. In "an age of turbulence" they frequently lack adequate moral guidance from the adult world, to the serious detriment of their intellectual and spiritual development. Many children now grow up in a society which is forgetful of God and of the innate dignity of the human person made in God’s image. In a world shaped by the accelerating processes of globalization, they are often exposed solely to materialistic visions of the universe, of life and human fulfillment.

Yet children and young people are by nature receptive, generous, idealistic and open to transcendence. They need above all else to be exposed to love and to develop in a healthy human ecology, where they can come to realize that they have not been cast into the world by chance, but through a gift that is part of God’s loving plan. Parents, educators and community leaders, if they are to be faithful to their own calling, can never renounce their duty to set before children and young people the task of choosing a life project directed towards authentic happiness, one capable of distinguishing between truth and falsehood, good and evil, justice and injustice, the real world and the world of "virtual reality".

Amen.