Jalapeños are a Lifestyle

At last year’s SETHSA homeschooling conference, I had someone stop by my booth who was part of the latest MLM craze….Xango! Xango! is mangosteen juice and mangosteen is tropical fruit that is full of really super whamodyne anti-oxidants. I was intrigued but really didn’t want to buy something with the kind of mark-ups that generally accompany products sold by multi-level marketing nor did I wish to become a salesperson in order to get the product at a reasonable price. I managed to deflect the nice salesperson by explaining that I was under a doctor’s care for my heavy metal detoxification and that I really didn’t want to make any changes in what I was doing at that time. (Which also happened to be the truth.) Well the nice sales lady happened to be the persistent variety and called me every few months and the last time she called, I said “I think in December that I will be ready to change things up a bit and I will try it then.” Well she had been so persistent to that point that I was surprised when mid-December arrived and I hadn’t heard from her. So I pulled out my trusty keyboard to see if I could get mangosteen to try for less money. I succeeded rather quickly and by the end of December I had added mongosteen to the supplements I am taking to support my detoxification.  Even though I had read some of the impressive information about mangosteen, I was really only trying it to say I had. I did not expect much. And because my expectations were rather low, it took me several weeks to figure out what it was that had provoked a nearly continuous migraine since the end December. So you’re wondering now…what on earth does this have to do with Lent? I’ll tell you. After a really miserable, beyond miserable 6 weeks of migraines, they have begun to taper off.  Whatever toxins the mangosteen is helping my body liberate from storage have slowed to a point where my body can keep up with moving the rest of the way OUT. So of course, it is time to see what else we can provoke and Lent is right around the corner.

I have my new rosaries written….marriage, humility, and healing for my spiritual de-toxing, and for the physical side, we are going to be hitting the veggie juice beginning with Ash Wednesday. Depending on how my body reacts, I’d like to do at leat one 48 hour juice fast during each week in Lent.

This one looked interesting when I sent it to my aunt for Christmas. I found myself muttering repeatedly under my breath when I got it “I don’t need anything new in my to-read pile. I don’t need anything new in my to-read pile….” When she sent me a note thanking me profusely for such a great book, I caved and bought it for myself.

It was a fascinating read with lots of interesting perspective on English life at the time of the Reformation. There was a decently interesting murder mystery with sad helpless but independent woman trying to make her way in a time when women had few choices. I also found it maddening. I was reading the preface of Why The Reformation Happened by Hilaire Belloc the other day and he opined about why it is necessary for Catholic historians to write about this period of history because only they understand what was lost and others cannot. And while I cannot be sure of Ms. Vantrease’s current religious affiliation the book’s biographical notes indicate that she is the daughter of a Baptist preacher. It showed in her writing. Sure there are plenty of slimy snaky priests with lots of overbearing stupid statements on the part of Catholic clergy in this book. Honestly, I have no problem with that portrayal. I am sure that there were plenty of those then and still are….human nature being what it is. And of course, there were the hardworking Protestants risking it all for “the cause.” There is also the usual smattering of bad Catholic theology. This of course usually sets me to musing about why, if all the Catholics were so slimy and so hopelessly misled, so many of them chose death in some pretty unpleasant ways under Henry VIII and Elizabeth and others. It always saddens me I have encountered so few works of historical fiction (none!) that tell the story of the Reformation from the “other” side. But none of that was what I found maddening in this book. It was what Belloc touched on the book I mentioned earlier. That somehow there is no understanding of what was lost. The heroine and her family in The Illuminator repeatedly expressed such distaste for having a family priest because it was so inconvenient to be forced to observe the Liturgy of the Hours. All right, all right…I will admit that having to observe Matins on a regular basis might be a trifle wearing. However, I often find myself wishing I lived closer to my parish so that I could attend daily Mass without fighting traffic, and burning multiple tanks of gas a week. I wish I lived in a Muslim country so that I would hear an audible call to prayer five times daily. In this country so many parishes don’t even have the blessing of weekly Mass much less daily Mass because of a shortage of Catholic clergy. I feel guilty for needing any of my pastor’s time because I know he is spread so thin. So I found myself insanely jealous of the heroine and her family for having even the possibility of having a family priest….a family chapel (oh WOW!). I wanted to slap her silly for refusing what would be such a blessing to me. Imagine hearing church bells throughout the day calling you to prayer. Imagine that it was those prayer times that marked the passage of the day and not the daily commutes, the nightly news, the other mundane secular events and instruments we use to pass the time. Think about what was lost.

Not mine…thank goodness! But somehow I have ended up with two children in double digits.

It is a tradition in our house to cancel school for birthdays so we had none today. The children got up early and settled in for a Star Wars film festival….until mom showed up with a “Fantastic Four” DVD. (Which Tim then promptly broke…sigh…why do they have to show off so much at this age? Don’t answer that. It was rhetorical. I know it’s testosterone poisoning.)Chris decided that he would forgo a Chuck E. Cheese trip in favor of an afternoon trip to the movies. We saw “Hoodwinked” which was surprisingly good and a good family choice. The children REALLY liked it and I didn’t think it was horrible. What more can you ask for? Dinner was Dairy Queen and the birthday cake was Baskin Robbins. The birthday boy is properly tanked up on sugar, brain-numbed from watching videos all day, and over-tired from staying up late. Ought to be heaven at the Happy Warrior Academy tomorrow. Sigh.

Undead and Unappreciated by Mary Janice Davidson 

The Yoga of Eating by Charles Eisenstein

Tolkien: Man and Myth by Charles Pearce

C.S. Lewis and the Catholic Church by Charles Pearce

Undead and Unwed by Mary Janice Davidson

Undead and Unemployed by Mary Janice Davidson

Midnight Mass by F. Paul Wilson 

John Paul the Great by Peggy Noonan

Night by Elie Wiesel

The Rule of St. Benedict