B-o-o-k

Everyone around here, it seems, is in the middle of writing a book.

I am working on the belly button book again, after a long hiatus.

Starling is in the early planning stages of writing her book called Theology of the Body: Extended.

Bear has been writing a book for the past few days about a boy who finds an ancient, magic, time-traveling gear. Shipwrecks at sea and underwater adventures are all part of the mix.

Mouse is writing a series--yes, a series--of four books about princesses, each named for a different season. Book 1 is called "The Princess of Spring," and it opens thusly: "April ran down the steps of her palace look-like-a-church and skidded across the marble-wood floor, grabbing a banner on the way. She SO did not want to be late for her first day of princess school (namely, A Shellington Proper Princess School, 108 Vine Road)." Nice beginning! (I'd quote Bear's here if I had it in front of me -- it's on another computer.)

And yesterday at the library, Jaybird learned to read "Book." She recognized the "boo" from Halloween and, with some help, put that together with the "k" sound. She has been going around practicing it ever since, writing it down again and again. I guess you could say that she's not writing one book, but many!

Little Mudpuppy is writing anything yet. Slacker.

Sales pitch: Gifts made from clay

So my sister (the heart attack one, not the seven kids one -- although why she doesn't have a heart attack too is beyond me) is trying her hand at crafts, specifically clay crafts. She is trying to sell them via a website for handmade craft items called Etsy. Here's my favorite item that she's made:

See the roses on that rosary? They're all handmade from clay. Neat, huh? She also has some wall hangings and some other stuff. Anyway, if it works out with your Christmas list, you can give her a boost by visiting her store:

Mudpuppy eating bread

"Mmmm!"

Mudpuppy's progress

Mudpuppy is making very good progress on his locomotion skills. Today he moved from being on his back, to being on his hands and stomach, to sitting up, all on his own. (Not in one smooth motion, but over about half an hour.) He is also figuring out how to move from a crawling position to a sitting position, and from a sitting position to a crawling position. He's still not crawling -- he doesn't seem to know what to do with his hands. He is getting better on the walking front, too. Last week, he moved across a gap between two chairs only very slowly and tentatively. This week, he practically sped across the gap to get to a piece of sweet bread. He also was able to move from standing at his exersaucer to a chair to the couch. He reminds me of someone climbing a rock wall freestyle -- carefully checking and testing every single move.

I finally got to upload a video from the new camera. We've had problems with the videos playing back smoothly on the computer -- they're all jerky. I think that's because the computer doesn't have enough memory to process HD video. I might look into adding some virtual memory. Anyway, here is the video:

Marking Veteran's Day

This morning, Mudpuppy and I joined several others at the Veteran's Memorial on the campus of Saint Mary's University for an informal period of reflection and prayer to mark Veteran's Day. As I sat there with Mudpuppy in my lap, I thought of the young men remembered by the memorial, most of whom never returned from World War II. I thought of my grandfather, a young man fighting through southern Italy, watching a distant battle from the second story of a building and wondering why men fight. I thought of my brother-in-law, anxiously waiting out mortar attacks in Baghdad. I thought of the many veterans I've shared meals with over the years at the Winona Catholic Worker; many of them saw combat in Vietnam.

So many generations of young men. And I looked down at the baby in my lap and wondered whether he would join their number.

We ask young men to risk their lives and to do horrific things that leave them with nightmares for the rest of their lives, and then we throw big stones in the ground, fly the flag, and tell them how grateful we are. Perhaps as an afterthought we mourn war as a "necessary evil."

Just as people have been doing, generation after generation, for thousands of years.

Instead of perpetuating this tradition, maybe it's time that we honored our veterans by admitting that the evil of war is never necessary, that it is always a failure of humanity. Perhaps if we could admit that, without castigating ourselves for that failure, perhaps then we could begin to imagine a different path.

Here is what we read, quietly, at the prayer vigil. This is a selection from the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, chapter 11:

494. Peace is a value and a universal duty  founded on a rational and moral order of society that has its roots in God himself, "the first source of being, the essential truth and the supreme good".[1017] Peace is not merely the absence of war, nor can it be reduced solely to the maintenance of a balance of power between enemies. Rather it is founded on a correct understanding of the human person and requires the establishment of an order based on justice and charity.

Peace is the fruit of justice, (cf. Is 32:17) understood in the broad sense as the respect for the equilibrium of every dimension of the human person. Peace is threatened when man is not given all that is due him as a human person, when his dignity is not respected and when civil life is not directed to the common good. The defence and promotion of human rights is essential for the building up of a peaceful society and the integral development of individuals, peoples and nations.

Peace is also the fruit of love. "True and lasting peace is more a matter of love than of justice, because the function of justice is merely to do away with obstacles to peace: the injury done or the damage caused. Peace itself, however, is an act and results only from love".

495. Peace is built up day after day in the pursuit of an order willed by God and can flourish only when all recognize that everyone is responsible for promoting it. To prevent conflicts and violence, it is absolutely necessary that peace begin to take root as a value rooted deep within the heart of every person. In this way it can spread to families and to the different associations within society until the whole of the political community is involved. In a climate permeated with harmony and respect for justice, an authentic culture of peace can grow and can even pervade the entire international community. Peace is, consequently, the fruit of "that harmony structured into human society by its Divine Founder and which must be actualized by men as they aspire for ever greater justice". Such an ideal of peace "cannot be obtained on earth unless the welfare of man is safeguarded and people freely and trustingly share with one another the riches of their minds and their talents".

496. Violence is never a proper response. With the conviction of her faith in Christ and with the awareness of her mission, the Church proclaims "that violence is evil, that violence is unacceptable as a solution to problems, that violence is unworthy of man. Violence is a lie, for it goes against the truth of our faith, the truth of our humanity. Violence destroys what it claims to defend: the dignity, the life, the freedom of human beings".

The contemporary world too needs the witness of unarmed prophets, who are often the objects of ridicule. "Those who renounce violence and bloodshed and, in order to safeguard human rights, make use of those means of defence available to the weakest, bear witness to evangelical charity, provided they do so without harming the rights and obligations of other men and societies. They bear legitimate witness to the gravity of the physical and moral risk of recourse to violence, with all its destruction and death".

 Let us pray that our children will become prophets of peace.

First word?

I'm not sure, but Mudpuppy may have said his first word this morning as we were leaving the prayer vigil at the Veteran's memorial this morning. "Let's say goodbye!" I prompted. And he raised his hand and waved a little bit (he still doesn't quite get it) while saying something sounding very close to "bye bye." We'll see whether he repeats it. Up until now, he's imitated ("ba ba ba," "da, da, da") but without attaching the sound to anything concrete.

We will wait and see.

They've got the floor

Some photos taken with the new camera -- all in low light (floor lamps) with no flash. Still a little blurry, but a lot better lighting, I think.