More from Rohr

Edgy excerpts from a few favorite posts by Father Richard Rohr:

"Maybe you've had the experience that it's not until someone dies that we ask the ultimate questions, and that's what we mean when we say Jesus had to die for us.  It's not that He had to literally pay God some price (  .  .  . as if the Father is standing up there in heaven with a big bill saying, 'Until I get some blood, I'm not going to change my mind about the human race.').  That puts us in a terrible position in relation to God, and it can't be true.  As if God could not forgive without payment  .  .  .  Quite simply, until someone dies, we don't ask the big questions.  We don't understand in a new way.  We don't break through.  The only price that Jesus was paying was to the human soul, so that we could break through to what is real and healing."

and

"If you keep listening to the love, if you keep receiving the love, trusting the love  .  .  .  you start to experience wihtin yourself a sense of possibility.  Whatever life is inviting you into, you have this sense that it is okay and, even better, that you can do it!  .  .  .  It's not just possibility  .  .  .  but permission.  It is permission to be who you really are.  It's not just gay people who have to come out of their closets.  We're all in our closets  .  .  .  it is permission to be the "image and likeness of God" that you already are.  .  .  .  Ironically, it takes most of our life to find it and accept it."

and

"Another word to describe mystical moments is emancipation.  If it isn't an experience of newfound freedom, I don't think it is an authentic God experience.  God is always bigger than you imagined or expected or even hoped.  When you see people going to church and becoming smaller instead of larger, you have every reason to question whether .  .  .  (it) is opening them to an authentic God experience.  (Authentic God experiences) will feel like a new freedom to love  .  .  .  You are participating in something larger than yourself  .  .  ."

and, finally:


"All this striving and this need to perform, climb, and achieve becomes, on some very real level, unnecessary  .  .  .  I can stop all this overproduction and over-proving of myself.  That's Western and American culture.  It's not the Gospel at all.  So many of us are performers and overachievers to some degree, and we think 'when we do that' we will finally be lovable.  Even when we 'achieve' a good day of 'performing,' it will never be enough, because it is inherently self-advancing and therefore self-defeating."  We might call it 'spiritual capitalism'."
 

Tryin' To Figure It Out

Spoiler alert -- if there are nearby small children who are exceptional early readers -- close this screen and open, again, at a later time.

Okay, so, it's later.  As if the Easter Bunny isn't interesting enough, what gives with the Tooth Fairy?  We, here, play all of it up big time, because it's fun.  It's imaginative.  It's the magic of childhood.  Thanks to friend Teri Doty I got the idea years ago that the Tooth Fairy leaves a mess of silver, magic glitter all over the place when he/she visits.  Surely, "Mom" would never make such a mess in the house, right?  And ya know how I've often compared Baylor to Rowling's Hermione and to Cleary's Ramona?  Well, apparently her imaginative, dreamy Ramona side was doing battle with her inner Hermione, because this is the note she left on her dresser: 

(The interesting grammar and capitalizations -- and occasional lack thereof -- are Bay's.)

"Dear tooth Fairy, This If you can, could I please have something rather than money like something from wherever you stay or something else!  What do you do with all the teeth?  Write back!  P.S. I tried to clean my tooth.  --Baylor A. Cluver"

And the note next to the note beside some candy pieces she also set out:

"For tooth Fairy  Enjoy!  Why do you put Glitter everywhere?  Are you small?  are you a boy or Girl?  --Baylor A. Cluver

She is totally into it, but wouldn't mind some proof, and thinks there's a reasonable chance she'll get some magical stuff and/or mystical answers.  She apparently desires some validation for the condition of the tooth, and has a Freudian slip of feminism with her capitalization of "Girl"? 

The Tooth Fairy did not write back, but he did leave the blossom from a Bleeding Heart flower plant (just like the one in our back yard), and Baylor reported excitedly the next morning that her request was fulfilled. 

Both Ramona and Hermonione win today! 

Confident Uncertainty

More from Father Rohr:

"I don’t think the important thing is to be certain about answers nearly as much as being serious about the questions. When we hold spiritual questions, we meet and reckon with our contradictions, with our own dilemmas; and we invariably arrive at a turning point where we either evade God or meet God. Mere answers close down the necessary struggle too quickly, too glibly, and too easily.   .  .  . we are taught best at the intersection of order and disorder  .  .  .   All real transformation of persons takes place when we’re inside of such .  .  . space—with plenty of questions that are open to God and grace and growth." (Sunday's Rohr post 8/26/12; excerpted; italics by S. Cluver)

I'm Ba-aaack!

Yup, I know -- I've not posted since JUNE!  Well, life's been happenin' -- grad class for me, knee surgery for Chad, and all the "normal stuff" like basketball, baseball, softball, tutoring, room remodels, building a tree house, road trips to see extended family in far-away states.  I really didn't think anyone would notice my absence from the blogosphere, but much to my suprised delight, a few people did, indeed, click in while I was AWOL.  Who knew?  Now, I do.  Thanks for caring about us, Cluver folk, enough to peek in on us every once in awhile ; )

Well, let's see, Bay's birthday was in March (prior to my last post in June), but due to an even worse delay in the uploading photography world, we need to catch up on that  .  .  .

Before you go completely cross-eyed counting candles, she's 9.

And the annual "sit on the couch with all your gifts."

A random tack-on -- evidence of Bay's serious play with her toys, which is always a favorite of mine. 

Apparently, this doll had fallen ill  .  .  .

Okay, so possibly funnier and less, uh, creepy in real life. 

Next, on to Easter  .  .  .

Eggs, and Beans, and Squirrels

Due to Anna and Jameson's Rite of Christian Initiation for Children (Baptism and First Communion at the Easter Vigil mass), we are at our own home for Easter this year. 

It began with an early Easter egg hunt of what Chad thought were 80 total colored, plastic eggs -- 12 filled with quarters, the rest with Jelly Bellies  .  .  .  until all four kids were on a quest for the last one.  Chad had perched precariously a white egg in the fork of a small branch -- out on end where the white Dogwood blossoms glowed.  In the quest, the kids continued to find more and more eggs beyond the 80, and it became a great deal of fun as the disbelief mounted. 

THEN, Bay looked up into one of the huge, old trees and pointed to what she thought was an orange Easter egg.  Chad hauled out a ladder to inspect what I thought must have been a puffball fungus or some odd bulge of sap (something gross); yet, sure enough, Bay was dead on target.  An orange egg, still full of candies, and with marks on one end from what were obviously tiny, sharp teeth.  My only disappointment was contemplating how much more fun it would have been to have witnessed that squirrel bringing home that treasure and placing it for what she thought was safe-keeping.  Boy, she's going to be ticked. 

Oh, the mild weather, the green, green grass, leaves and blooms popping out of branches.  LOVE the lightness of this season!

And, of course, then we have to do the vinegar and Paas' colored tabs in coffee cups to create the rainbow of protein for Easter morning breakfast.  Two dozen dipped spoons later, and done.  Seeing the shells take on the colors of lime green, deep coral, and even basics like blue or yellow -- never really gets old.

Saturday is the big Baptism, First Communion, and spiritual celebration of Easter, and we began with a brunch of Easter egg braided bread (a First Communion tradition for our kids), fruit salad, peppered bacon and cheddar quiche, and (at Anna's request) hot cocoa.  (Pre-primping; notice the sleepy faces.)  We gave to the kids their celebration gifts from Chad and I: a Willow Tree angel each, a generations' old family rosary each, and saint-themed gifts (a new yoga DVD for Anna in the spirit of Saint Alphonsa, "Little Anna," of Kerala, India, and a new Dr. Seuss book for Jameson to practice reading with the education connection to the namesake of my alma mater -- St. Thomas Aquinas).

We dined on picnic fair in the church hall with our families for supper, and then, proceeded to the 7:30pm 2-hour Easter vigil service.  The soulful and spirited alto "Ay-ay-men!" couresty Miss Sara was moving, the flowers and candles gorgeous, and the evening an overall joyful success.

We concluded the eve with cheesecake and coffee back at our house for a relaxed visit with the kids' Godparents -- dear, dear family friends, Colleen and Dana Dale.

And the next day, the kids found treats left for them by what we think (based partially on shopping mall observations) to be a human-sized, bipedal, mute, white rabbit who gets into children's houses undetected, at night, while the kids sleep.  Hmm  .  .  .