Tay's Tips for Pregnancy #23: Buy a Cheap Stethoscope...

Early on in Betsy's pregnancy I would try to listen to our baby using a cheap ($20) stethoscope I have at home. It's a chinese copy of a Rappaport-Sprague--the sort with the diaphragm on one side and a bell on the other. I couldn't hear anything. On our first trip to the OB, they could easily pick it up with a Doppler Fetoscope. On our first trip to the Midwife, she was able to detect the heartbeat with a combination of an Allen Type Fetal Stethoscope and a finely tuned diagnostic ear. I thought I might have barely been able to hear our little guy's heart, but couldn't be certain.

On our last trip (Betsy at 29 weeks) I could faintly hear the baby's heart beat using the midwife's Allen Stethoscope, but Betsy couldn't. Now, at this point I had given up trying to hear the heartbeat with my chinese knock-off general-practice stethoscope. I figured, sure, you can hear it with a $150 specialized instrument placed in the right position by an expert, but what chance do I have at home.

So then this evening, on a whim, I took the stethoscope out of the drawer and put the bell-side to Betsy's belly in approximately the location where the midwife had (thus assuming that our little guy was in more or less the same position) . "Thump, thump, thump..." There he was! I didn't even believe it at first, so I listened to Betsy's heart and noted that it was going at around 60 beats a minute. But when I timed the belly-thumping it was a steady 125 BPM! I passed the headset to Betsy and she could hear him, too! How cool is that?

Actually, Betsy is a little underwhelmed. Our son has been busy kicking and rearranging her insides all day, so the novelty of "he's really in there" has worn off. But for me, this is really amazing.

Now, I'm aware that there are electronic gadgets on the market that promise to make it possible to hear the heartbeat and even record it. But there is something about an old-fashioned acoustic stethoscope that feels much more visceral and real. Trust me, guys, buy a cheap stethoscope and give a listen around week 30! I'm looking at you, Bob!

-t

Monastic Enterprise

Bob points me to an article in the New York Times about some monks in Wisconsin that sell printer cartridges to raise the money necessary to keep the monastery going:

Ever entrepreneurial, the women also sell products made by other monasteries, including chocolates, pralines and a barbeque sauce called “Burnt Sacrifice.” They sell Benevolent Biscuits, dog treats the monks here make on cookie trays in the monastery kitchen.

Their latest product is a laser printer cartridge made with soybean oil instead of petroleum. Holding up a newly printed page, Ms. Caniglia said, “It’s environmentally safe, the print is great,” and it produces more pages per cartridge than an oil-based cartridge at a lower price. “It’s a no-brainer.” (source)

I think it's brilliant that most communities have to produce something that the ordinary world finds valuable. It helps keep such communities grounded. It's even more interesting, from my perspective, at least, when that enterprise involves the hands-on work of the monks. For instance, both the book store and the guest house at Holy Cross require a LOT of attention from the monks, which mean that the people that patronize those businesses get to interact with the monks themselves.

Monks and nuns around the world do all kinds of interesting things. I've always been fascinated by the Monks at New Skete raising German Shepherds. Or how about Mother Noella Marcellino, who did her Ph.D. and a Fulbright Scholarship becoming a world-renowned expert on Cheese.

Much has been written about the spirituality of such labour. Unfortunately, our society has lost something along the way when it comes to the meaning of creative work. A recent long New York Times feature on the meaning of work noted the rise in popularity of shows like "Dirty Jobs" and "Deadliest Catch" as evidence of a kind of nostalgia for the perceived meaningfulness of blue collar work. The feature article was written by Matthew Crawfrod, who adapted the essay from his new book Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work.

This is about craft. I appreciate good craftsmanship in all it's forms because it shows a kind of a cooperation with creation. Shoddy workmanship suggests disharmony with creation. And I'm not just talking about crafts that involve physical stuff. Consider the craft of a well-delivered sermon or the craft of doing good liturgy!

Alas, the days when Shop class was a mandatory part of education are slipping. More and more kids are connecting on Facebook rather than under the hood of a car.

-t

Success, Happiness, and the Mysterious Whims of Fortune

David Brooks of the NYTimes writes today about the Grant Study, a 70-year longitudinal study into success and happiness. The study tracked 268 of America's most promising young men. It recruited them from the top ranks of Harvard's sophomore class. These were the most well-adjusted, most gifted, most ambitious young men the researches could find. Our expectations would be that they would live up to the promise as their lives unfolded.

Their lives played out in ways that would defy any imagination save Dostoyevsky’s. A third of the men would suffer at least one bout of mental illness. Alcoholism would be a running plague. The most mundane personalities often produced the most solid success. One man couldn’t admit to himself that he was gay until he was in his late 70s. (source)

One of the most gifted of the bunch fell apart in his 30s. One became a major advocate for gay rights after coming out of the closet late in life, only to die at age 64.

Yet some connections to begin to emerge:

The men were able to cope with problems better as they aged. The ones who suffered from depression by 50 were much more likely to die by 63. The men with close relationships with their siblings were much healthier in old age than those without them. (source)

Another thing that emerges is that happiness much less to do with success than it does with relationship. "Happiness is love. Full Stop," he says in this remarkable video:

There is a lot of wisdom is this.

-t

Acedia

I'm really feeling pretty awful in my gut these days. I have been since Holy Week. Something's gnawing at me. Alas, it's not the sort of thing I can really discuss on my blog accept to say that it is spiritually fruitful to explore the origins of unpleasant feelings. These days thoughts keep coming into my head about how terribly inadequate I am in my vocation and as a person, generally. What comes into my mind are specific memories, some of events that happened decades ago, in which I felt horribly embarrassed, inadequate, or otherwise bad. Usually when these kinds of thoughts come up I can push them aside without difficulty, but the last two weeks have been different.

Bede would say that part of me is trying to push itself to the surface. He would counsel me to be hospitable, in some way, to whatever shadow stuff was trying to emerge. Easier said than done. Even if I were brave enough to "go there" with these feelings, there is the fear that this kind of shadow work would paralyze my ability to "get things done" in my pastoral role. I don't think my congregation would appreciate it much if I emotionally and physically withdrew from them for a week or even a few days. Yes, I'm sure there are many members who would be okay with that, but there are others who would either resent it or at least be confused by it. The unfortunate fact is that much of what goes on here revolves around me and my decisions, and that's part of the very definition of a "pastoral sized church."

I remember in the monastery people would often find themselves in these kinds of spaces. It was understood as something that happens in the engaged spiritual life from time to time, and so we knew how to give people room at such times. I have many fine stories of people I know and respect needing to be grumpy and withdrawn for a few days or weeks and everyone around them simply accepting that as something he or she needed to do. But I have not inherited a model of parish life that gives that kind of room to the chief.

It's also hard not to feel a bit selfish allowing the ebbs and flows of my spiritual life overflow onto the congregation--yet if people want transparency and authenticity from their spiritual leaders, then they ought to expect some of this from time to time.

Lucky for me, tomorrow and Thursday I'm on an over-night retreat with the Momentum Program at SSJD. It's what you might call a high-trust group, and there is very little that I would not share with my colleagues there. So I'm sure that will help. Yet at the end of the day this is my work to do: notice-engage-integrate. I know people that have been cycling through these kinds of states for their entire lives. Sigh.

One manifestation of the shadows poking through is "Acedia"--an old word sometimes translated as "sloth" or even "depression." Kathleen Norris gave a particular meaning to that word in her writings. Acedia, for her, is the "noon-day demon" that the Desert Fathers talked about: a feeling of spiritual paralysis difficult to overcome. The Desert Fathers (quoted in Norris) have the following to say:

Amma Syncletica said: There is a grief that is useful, and there is a grief that is destructive. The first sort consists in weeping over one's own faults and weeping over the weakness of one's neighbors, in order not to lose one's purpose, and attach oneself to the perfect good. But there is also a grief that comes from the enemy, full of mockery, which some call accidie. This spirit must be cast out, mainly by prayer and psalmody.

Yes, that's precisely what I'm talking about--a mocking grief that is not helpful. In a chapter she wrote called simply "Acedia," Kathleen Norris reflected on the way that simply showing up to church helped. Yes, yes. That seems to be one of the keys to this... simply showing up despite the noonday demon.

Anyway, I should get over this pretty soon. It's just the pastoral blues...

-t

Maundy Thursday 2008

What to say about Maundy Thursday? Something about the mixed feelings of the day. The love and service at the table. The long night. The arrest. The trial. The death. Jesus hidden.

"Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis
vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent:
Sibylla ti theleis; respondebat illa: apothanein thelo." (translation)

Mostly I feel tired. It's only Thursday and I'm tired! Lent should be over. Winter should lift. When will the snow melt?

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers. (source)

This time of year I often read T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. I believe it's really a Triduum poem: caught in the dynamics of this difficult three days.

After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience (source)

Yet it's a complicated resurrection Eliot presents to us. One of those already-not-yet paradox things.

In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain (source)

The poem eventually leaves us the flooded plane, wondering what to do in our little boats.

Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam ceu chelidon - O swallow swallow
Le Prince d'Aquitaine a la tour aboli
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih
(source)

It's a complicated poem. I spent a lot of time studying it before it really started to make sense to me. Reading Dante helps (which, coincidentally, I have been doing this Lent). Yet there is much wisdom there--and plenty of heartache to go around.

Sigh. It's Maundy Thursday.

-t

Correction

This morning was the annual "Renewal of Vows and Chrism Mass" at the Cathedral. That means that most of the clergy in the Diocese gather to renew our Ordination Vows. Also during the service, the Bishops bless the oil that is used through the year for Chrismation and Unction. All the clergy tote bottles to the service to have them filled for the year's supply. (Of course, plenty more is kept at the Cathedral in case we run out.) It's an interesting tradition that helps remind us all of our connection to the Bishops and the Diocesan family.

Every year before the service Christian Swayne, OHC, sits in a side-chapel to hear Confessions before the service. Usually I take advantage of this opportunity to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation (aka "Confession"), but this year I didn't for two reasons: 1) I arrived at the Cathedral about 15 minutes before the service, and didn't feel like I was in the right head-space to confess for that reason, and 2) I couldn't think of anything specific to confess this year. Of course, often when I've gone for this sacrament I've confessed something vague and innocuous, which has some value, but it's not what we usually imagine Confession is for. As I sat in my Cathedral box-pew, I decided that Reconciliation is best received after suitable preparation, which I hadn't really done, so I should just try again next year.

The service itself was mostly about faithfulness and discipleship--worthy themes to preach to a church full of priests--but I wasn't really moved until I went up for Communion and passed through the choir while they sang some particularly lovely canticle (a setting of Ubi Caritas, I believe). At that moment, ascending the steps into the chancel and surrounded at once by the choir, the stain glass, so many clergy friends, and immanent Communion, I smiled and tilted my head back to drink it all in.

Then God pulled the rug out from my comfortable ego. By the time today was done I was made aware of several ways in which I failed people. Basically, several different people, in all love and charity, confronted me about some things I've failed to take care of recently. It's nothing that really hurts people or things in a major way, but it's just stuff where I let people down. I was expected to do certain things and I failed. I had to apologize and promise to do better. More than that, I was able to come up with some ways of correcting my behavior so that I should get a better result next time.

This kind of correction is hard. But, you know, we priest-types are always asking our people to accept loving criticism, and that's pretty hypocritical if we aren't willing to accept some ourselves. A senior priest told me a few months ago, "You need people to tell you when you are being an ass hole." So true.

The place where I really learned how to take criticism well was CPE. CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) is a training program for clergy that involves a combination of supervised pastoral care (in the form of chaplaincy) and what amount to group and individual therapy. One of the key experiences in this is learning how to criticize your peers and receive criticism in a healthy way. This is very, very difficult. But in CPE we spent literally hours and hours sitting in a circle listening to others criticize us. It's brutal. But if you survive, it's because you've developed a way to receive and process critique (and all the emotions that go with it).

Of course, some clergy would say that you should never admit to making mistakes in public unless you really must, because it undermines people's trust in your competence. But I think that's just baloney--if we can't repent openly, how is anyone else going to learn to do it? We are called to be models of the Christian life, after all, and that means continual amendment of life!

So now I need to get some cat litter and then work on a project due tomorrow morning that I have been procrastinating on. God help me, a sinner!

-t

On Telling Stories

Susan, on her blog This Passage, quotes this wonderful bit from Elie Wiesel's The Gates of the Forest.

“When Rabbi Israel Baal Shem-Tov saw misfortune threatening…it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and misfortune averted. When his disciple, Magid of Mezritch, had occasion to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say, Master of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer.” Again, the miracle would be accomplished. Later, Rabbi Moshe-Leib of Sasov, in order to save the people, would go into the forest and say, “I do not know how to light the fire. I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient.” Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, head in his hands, he spoke to God: “I am unable to light the fire. I do not know the prayer. I cannot find the place in the forest. All I can do is tell the story, and this must be sufficient.”
And it was sufficient.
God made man because He loves stories.
--Elie Wiesel

Isn't that great? Reminds of the Desert Fathers, naturally.

-t

Eugene Peterson

Ever have one of those books sitting around that you just know will change you, when you get around to reading it? Since seminary I've had Eugene Peterson's book The Contemplative Pastor sitting in my pile of books I must read. I don't remember who recommended it to me, but I always knew that it would be important to me once I took the time to actually read it. So yesterday I decided to crack it open and see where it takes me. Here's a good quote from an interview of Peterson:

...Maybe we need more pastors like him, and more churches that want pastors like him: the pastor who wants to be local, to take seriously a place, and the church that wants to be a community, using the materials of its locale. At least that's how I understand the pastoral life. I've been at Christ Our King Church for twenty-six years. All William Faulkner knew was two or three square miles of Mississippi, and I guess that's what I want to do. I want to know two or three square miles of Christ Our King, just know it and keep on knowing it.

Good stuff. The imperative of the local. There is tremendous wisdom is this idea of just staying local with our attentions. It reminds me of the Desert Fathers and Mothers.

-t

Wisdom

Here's a profound thought for you:

Kitten farts do, in fact, stink.

-t