Blogger’s Note: The whole idea behind these “Second Third” posts can be found here.
In my Second Third, I will not procrastinate my Christmas shopping, the Thorp Christmas Letter, none of it. I’ll begin the day after Thanksgiving, and be wrapped by the Immaculate Conception. I’ll have time to blog, and help with the baking, and brew a good holiday beer.
Starting next year. Letter’s coming.
Blogger’s Note: The whole idea behind these “Second Third” posts can be found here.
I like to cook because I like to eat. Even at an early age, I was somewhat particular about how things were made — for example, my dad taught be to put butter or margarine on a PB&J sandwich, because it makes the PB a little easier to swallow. To this day, one slice of bread gets a thin layer of butter, followed by a thick layer of crunchy peanut butter (none of that creamy nonsense), while the other gets plenty of jelly (strawberry preferably). The butter definitely helps ease the stickiness of the peanut butter, and the taste is exquisite (because it’s butter…naturally). I can eat three on an empty stomach, but Brendan insists one is plenty. Washed down with milk (or chocolate milk!) = heavenly!
The first thing I learned to cook for real was French toast, because I loved to eat it, and Mom didn’t want to make it. She showed me once. Once early on I made the mistake of cooking an entire batch using Dad’s rye bread (awful idea) — but otherwise, it’s only gotten better. Jim’s Casserole: noodles, sausage, cream of mushroom soup, cream corn, and as much shredded cheddar as you can melt. Old Lamplighter Chili: winner of work contests and bragging rights. I made Jodi a pineapple upside-down cake for her birthday. I used to even bake bread…from scratch.
In recent years, however, I’ve stagnated a bit…and while several of the foods described above aren’t particularly healthy-sounding, they are possibly better than the processed and preserved stuff we eat otherwise. In my Second Third, I intend for my garden to grow in size and scope. I hope to hunt and fish more, and more successfully. And I hope to take up and master new cooking activities. For example, Dad has given my two sourdough cookbooks. I love sourdough bread, and I’m intrigued by the living alchemy involved. Similarly, a friend of mine brews beer, and our first batch turned out pretty solid. Let’s do that!
But the biggest challenge — and a gift to both me and my wife — is posed by the two or three Asian cookbooks atop the pantry in the kitchen. Jodi and I love Thai and Chinese food, especially. If I can master a few key recipes — sesame chicken, drunken noodles, pork fried rice, Singapore noodles — I think our family would eat little else. Except maybe Jodi’s lasagna and mostaccioli. And breakfast burritos. Oh! and oven-fried chicken! And…
jude
if life is a larger, later thing, what left this perfect
child-size hole? what nameless wonder wrought
such joy, such sorrow in so short a time, unseen?
tiny saint — a soul unstained by flesh and blood,
a heart too big for a bone cage — we feel your
flutter, little one, and rejoice to know a piece
of this love has found heaven.
Blogger’s Note: The whole idea behind these “Second Third” posts can be found here.
I tend to spend too much time “in my head,” as a friend of mine would say. Ever read the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? Well, I half-recommended it to my dad, in part because I thought he’d like the motorcycle parts, and in part because I admired it (which is not the same as liked). He read it, and afterward admitted that he liked the motorcycle parts best, and that the philosophical portions of the book, which appeared to have lead the narrator to a nervous breakdown, made him think of me.
A couple different times in my teen years, he and Mom came home to find me sitting alone in silence in the twilight, having accomplished nothing all day, pale and distracted and emotional. He knows I have a tendency to go down the rabbit hole. So far I’ve always been able to find my way back to the surface. So far.
This tendency is at its worst when I get into a heated discussion regarding something I care about, especially with a friend. I will hash and re-hash an argument, sometimes even out loud, think of responses and likely counters, try to imagine what may have led to their point of view and how best to persuade them or at least make myself understood…and if the discussion is happening online, check for replies compulsively with my stomach tied in knots. I have unfriended people on Facebook just to relieve myself of the anxiety about The Next Thing they were sure to say, tomorrow, or two years from now, that would ignite an argument. I have a hard time ignoring things, and a harder time letting go.
It’s not a problem with forgiveness. I can forgive; that’s an action I can take, every day if need be. But I can’t forget. And if it’s me that screwed up, it’s worse still, because I tend not to cut myself much slack. With myself, even the forgiveness comes hard.
Another friend often says, “The perfect is the enemy of the good,” meaning that all of our efforts to make everything work out just so will amount to nothing, because perfection is unachievable, and by focusing all out efforts on accomplishing the impossible, we will accomplish nothing.
I have a wife to love, children to raise, things to do — I can’t afford to accomplish nothing! No one lives to 105 with the weight of all their mistakes on their shoulders and a thousand useless arguments raging in their heads. No question about it: in my Second Third, I need to lighten up.
Blogger’s Note: The whole idea behind these “Second Third” posts can be found here. I’ve had multiple half-baked ideas for posts these past few weeks, but this one jumped to the forefront after reading Prairie Father’s latest post. Kudos, Father Tyler, for sparking this. The choice between two goods is the very definition of a dilemma, don’t you think?
Here at the beginning of my Second Third, I’ve gotten more comfortable with a me I never thought I’d be: a church guy. You know, a weekly worshipper, and more than that: a known quantity in the gathering space after Mass, a meet-n-greeter, a volunteer. One of those guys…
This is somewhat surprising. I was raised a good Catholic in every way except the church-on-Sunday way (so-called “old-fashioned” morals and values, but aside from a brief stint my late elementary years, no Mass or catechesis), then went on to study evolutionary anthropology, which was generally an atheist discipline. Thankfully I had just enough churching and manners to not drive Jodi away entirely when we first met. She brought me around.
The funny thing is, I got along with all sorts of people in school, but didn’t necessarily fit in anywhere. I was a poor athlete, and Coach asked me to help the first-stringers study for their exams. My bearded and be-hatted dad drove the mule to town now and again; that and my square tendencies caused even some of my closest friends to contemplate my Amish-ness. In college, too, I was square and old-fashioned, never an outcast, but never A-list. Friends were surprised when I went to South Dakota to sell western boots, and floored when I came back talking marriage and kids. These were not Ivy League aspirations — at least, not in the near-term.
Jodi brought this baptized Catholic back to the church. A number of good priests — good friends — inspired me and advised me to follow my doubts and questions. Even my dad, who does not share my faith, has never discouraged me from seeking and finding.
So I’ve searched and searched for people like me. Michigan to Connecticut to South Dakota to Michigan again, and finally to St. Michael Catholic Church in St. Michael, Minnesota. I have family in Michigan, family I miss terribly. But I have brothers and sisters here, too, and each week, each Sunday, it gets harder to imagine living anyplace else.
In early October, I had the opportunity to meet my dad on the Tahquamenon River in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to fish on our old houseboat. I could get just Friday and Monday off from work: drive all day Friday, sleep Friday night, and head up the river at first light on Saturday to the fishing hole. The boat landing was a couple hours downstream from our fishing hole, and the closest Catholic church was 40 minutes from the landing, and offered just two Masses: 5 p.m. Saturday or 9 a.m. Sunday.
Either we’d have to pull up our anchor after lunch on Saturday, go to church, and sleep ashore again, then resume fishing mid-morning Sunday, or we’d have to pull anchor a couple hours before sundown on Saturday, sleep ashore at the landing, then drive into church Sunday morning. We’d get back to the fishing hole in early afternoon and get a couple hours of fishing in before we needed to head back to landing, since I’d need to leave first thing Monday to make it home.
I prayed on it, talked to a friends, and decided it was important to spend this time with Dad, even if it meant missing Mass. I further resolved to spend time Sunday praying the rosary and reading scripture — and to receive the sacrament of Confession before Mass the following Sunday.
I had a great weekend with Dad, a great Sunday, and honestly never felt far from God. But all weekend, when I thought about missing Mass, a little pang would shoot through my chest. For the first time, it wasn’t so much guilt for missing Mass…it was missing Mass. Longing for it.
How weird is that? I thought.
I did go to Confession the following Saturday, and another good priest told me he thought it was important that I spend time with my dad, but reminded me that if I truly believe, then I must also understand that attending and actually praying the Mass is the most powerful thing I can do for anyone I love. More food for thought.
In Matthew Chapter 12 is a passage that used to trouble me. Jesus is with his disciples, and he is told that his mother and brothers wish to speak with him: But he said in reply to the one who told him, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.” — Mt 12:48-50
I think I’m beginning to understand. So in my Second Third, I’m embracing my inner Church guy, and working to balance our family by blood and our family in the Body. I can love both — and I should if I am to love either one well.
Archangel Stomp 