I’ve added a few new sites to my Friends and Good People blogroll (to the right and below) — take a minute and check them out!
The Art of Manliness. Fr. Tyler at Prairie Father introduced me to The Art of Manliness site some years ago. Whatever you’d like to delve into among the masculine and gentlemanly arts, it’s here — from grooming and dressing, to proper tool use and survival skills, to sandwich recipes and a killer series on the history of manly honor. Do yourself a favor, men — check it out, then bookmark it for your sons.
House Unseen. Two blogging friends (Laura the Crazy Mama and Andrea at Reconciling Remus and Rome) shared a brilliant post on Natural Family Planning from Dwija at House Unseen (which I myself passed on a few weeks back). I went there, and read this: “We bought a house in rural Michigan sight-unseen off the internet. My husband quit his job in California and we moved our kids across the country. Dogs. Goats. Chickens. Homeschooling. Crazy. I like my sacraments Catholic and my beer cold.” I think we could be friends.
The Imaginative Conservative. If you’ve begun to despair that folks have forgotten there is such as thing as a conservative intellectual tradition, go here. They’ll make you want to read, write, and think again.
Hope to see you around the neighborhood — if you visit these sites, let me know what you think!
It’s been many months, but it’s here: our first online-only, illustrated Holiday Letter, just in time for Pentecost. (Download and open or print for the best viewing experience.) Thank you all for your patience — and for asking about it occasionally, which was just enough inspiration to finally get it done!
Blogger’s Note: The links below are to good stuff, but not necessarily kids’ stuff. Use discretion.
Probably the most transformation part of my conversion to Catholicism — not just going to church on Sunday, but full-tilt “this is who I am and how I try to live” conversion — has been the reorientation of my thinking on the topics of marriage, sexuality, and procreation. See, the Catholic Church is perhaps the one institution on Earth that has refused to divorce these three things from each other…and when Jodi and I were preparing for marriage, I was not entirely on board with that.
Now Jodi and I speak at retreats for engaged couples, sharing with frankness how we were, in fact, where they are — crazy in love, uncertain about parenthood, frightened by the Church’s teachings, and unready to “risk” a baby. (What an awful phrase, in retrospect.) We share the Truth we’ve come to know as best we can — but I’m always looking for new ways of going about it. And once in a while, I stumble across really good stuff.
So — if you’re struggling to understand or explain the Church’s teachings marriage and sexuality, check out these links:
NFP Doesn’t Work…You Have So Many Kids!: Read your Genesis: fertility is the original blessing from God — and if it ain’t broke, don’t “fix” it! This blog post hits the nail on the head with humor and truth to spare.
How Premarital Sex Rewires the Brain: a simple, biology-based explanation for why relationships that get too serious too quickly last too long, crash so hard, and hurt so bad.
After Steubenville: 25 Things Our Sons Need to Know About Manhood: a mother’s poetic and heart-wrenching response to the teen sexual assault that made national headlines.
Not long ago, an old friend asked if I still had big plans for my career, as a writer, or maybe running for office. He had known me years before when I used to daydream about such possibilities. I told him that these days, if I raise my sons to respect women and my daughters to respect themselves, I’ll have done alright.
Some kids are too young to hear this sort of material — but as parents, when the time is right, we’ve got to share it. I firmly believe it’s the only way we can redeem the culture. I’m grateful that, judging from the links above, others feel the same.
Back in early December, I announced that I was suspending this blog and taking it off-line. I likened my writing career thus far to standing on my head for show: requiring modest skill; impressive at first, then amusing, before becoming repetitive, uncomfortable, and unnatural. I even went so far as to declare, “ I won’t call myself a writer again until I write something worthwhile, and I don’t know what it will be.” Those who know me well know I have a tendency to take myself entirely too seriously. I was in a bad spot at the time: way too busy at work, home, and church; unable to make a satisfactory start on the annual Christmas letter; and unhappy in my work. Some several things needed to give — but this blog was not one of them.
As a full-time husband, father, and director of communications, this little corner of the internet is one of the few places I actually do write stuff that people read. The people who matter most to me are here, but they aren’t the only ones — consider that this tiny, rhyming prayer is the most viewed post on my site, in large part due to readers (or skewed search results) from Russia. A favorite web site of mine, The Art of Manliness, posted an article awhile back entitled, “How a Man Handles a Miscarriage.” I read the post and the appreciative comments, before adding a comment of my own and sharing a bit about our little Jude. Men came and read, and though they left no comments, who knows whom it touched?
In fact, if I want to be truly serious about writing, I would not permit myself to be limited by the potential for monetary gain. A few weeks ago I was looking through the Catechism of the Catholic Church to see specifically what the Church teaches about property rights — and learned that while she makes no bones about supporting the right to private property, she is insistent that we steward our property and talents for the greater good:
“In his use of things man should regard the external goods he legitimately owns not merely as exclusive to himself but common to others also, in the sense that they can benefit others as well as himself.” The ownership of any property makes its holder a steward of Providence, with the task of making it fruitful and communicating its benefits to others, first of all his family.
Goods of production — material or immaterial — such as land, factories, practical or artistic skills, oblige their possessors to employ them in ways that will benefit the greatest number. Those who hold goods for use and consumption should use them with moderation, reserving the better part for guests, for the sick and the poor (CCC 2404 and 2405).
I read and re-read it: Goods of production, including practical or artistic skills, “oblige their possessors to employ them in ways that will benefit the greatest number … reserving the better part for guests, for the sick and the poor.”
A “serious” writer , then, should speak the truth, regardless of gain or loss, for the good of those who need to hear or whomever will listen.
Every year for the past five or so, Jodi and I and the kids have joined 30 or so families from St. Michael’s and St. Albert’s parishes at a camp near Upsala, Minnesota, called Camp Lebanon. The first year I didn’t want to go, a) because with a dining hall, water toys, and showers, it wasn’t really camping; b) because I was going to be surrounded by kids not my own; and c) because I didn’t feel like I knew enough people and wasn’t looking forward to being “on” all weekend.
All true observations…none of which had any impact on my actual enjoyment of the weekend. We’ve been going back ever since, and even organized it a couple of years.
No time to do a complete recap of the weekend, but here are the Top 10 Highlights:
10. Not My Job! I had hoped to be done with my work early on Friday so we could be on the road by 3 p.m. or so. Not even close, and when 4 p.m. rolled around and I was still packing, my blood pressure started to rise.
Then I remembered: We’re not running things this year. We can get up there any time before tomorrow, and it’s all good.
Turns out we made it in plenty of time for Friday evening activities — and with Lily this year, it’s a good thing we weren’t the organizers! Kudos to Sustaceks, Duerrs, and Fredricksons for a great weekend!
9. New Faces. We missed a number of dear friends who weren’t there…but there were so many new families, too, that you couldn’t help but make new connections. I met potential homebrewers, Axis and Allies enthusiasts, future KCs, and just all-around good guys — hopefully next year the old and the new will all show up, and then some!
8. Albany Invasion. Albany, Minnesota, is the last stop for food on the way to the camp. A gas station just off the freeway houses A&W, Subway, Godfather’s Pizza, Taco John’s, and Chester’s Fried Chicken counters under one roof — and Friday afternoon, it hosted nearly every family bound for Camp Lebanon in constant rotation. I’m sure the locals had to be wondering about the volume of strangers greeting each other with hugs and handshakes.
7. Has Anyone Seen… Once we settle in at camp, the kids are off and running with their friends. Jodi and I ate with grown-ups and Lily, and generally soaked up the weekend, only rousing ourselves occasionally to ask around, “Has anyone seen [CHILD’S NAME HERE]?” And we were hardly the only ones.
6. Holy Spirit at Work. More than once, someone stopped to share that the weekend itself, or something someone did or said, was just what they needed — that the Holy Spirit was at work last weekend. But the most striking example came on Sunday morning, when one of my own overextended children decided to disobey Jodi and run off to play with friends. I confronted the child and had a long talk about the responsibilities that come with being family — and I thought it sunk in. Only a few minutes later, a local seminarian, Paul, offered a scripture reflection in which he talked about how family is diminished when one person acts selfishly — and I looked over to see wide, staring, glassy eyes. I asked about it later, and was told, “I heard him and I was like, “Seriously?!” Wow.
5. Zip Line! I watched two grown men race over a wooded ravine, brazen in their talk but white in their knuckles. I watched our priest and seminarian zip through the tree tops — Father was pounding his chest; Paul was all smiles and thumbs up. But best of all, I watched Emma nervously strap up after watching the men, whimpering and sighing a bit under her breath; watched her set out across the ravine tentatively, and watched her slide back over, screaming and giggling, barely able to speak “That was awesome!” to the camera. She is the only Thorp to have done it so far. She deserves applause.
4. Dating Survey. A few friends began asking an unofficial survey question of the couples at camp: “Do you and your spouse go on dates?” Jodi said, “Not really.” I said, “Occasionally.” Then we both said, “Unless running errands or getting groceries alone together count.” The ruling came back: if we are specifically going together and leaving the kids behind, it counts. Oh, yes, we are still romantic!
3. Early Morning Run. Brendan rose at 6:45 a.m. on a Saturday to go running with a few of the guys from school — and a few girls. I rose a little after 7, and when I emerged from the bathhouse, they were coming the hill from the lake: four or five girls, graceful and light on their feet, and two clomping boys bringing up the rear. Turns out the girls were all cross-country runners, and the two wrestlers were the only boys motivated enough to get up that early. What motivated them to keep pace with the fleet-footed young ladies over two or three miles? I’m going with sheer stubborn pride…though at that age, who can guess? (For an alternative explanation, see the video below…)
2. Family Prayer. Family rosaries each night, and Saturday evening mass with sunbaked parents and waterlogged kids doing their best to be reverent. Families praying together with families. There’s nothing better, except…
1. Serenading Lily. Every year we listen to The White Stripes on the way to the camp. This year Lily was fussing until the guitars and drums kicked in, and, to a person, all four of her siblings began to sing to her.
Wish I could’ve recorded them doing it — leaning over her car seat, almost in harmony, and her grinning, gasping, laughing face. She’s pretty good-looking (for a girl).
Archangel Stomp 