The Christian Life: January 2004 Archives

We were at the Latin Mass yesterday, and on the other side of the pew was an older gentleman who kept looking over at out family. The two youngest were being their usual fidgety selves, so my husband assumed "oh, they are distracting him..." Later he brought them in the back.

After Mass, the gentleman approached my husband and told him "your children are so well behaved, here take this and buy them a little something nice." He handed my husband a few bills. At first glance there were a few singles on top, so my husband thought "Oh, a couple of dollars. That was very kind of him." Later my husband pulled out the wad and unraveled it: two singles, a five, a ten a twenty...thirty seven dollars. My husband went back out to find the genetleman to tell him we couldn't possibly accept that much money, but he was gone.

Not necessarily: Electrolux, the company that probably made the refrigerator in your home (think Frigidaire, White-Westinghouse, Gibson, Kenmore, Kelvinator) just rewarded 2700 workers in central Michigan for their productivity, loyalty and decades of hard work.

With a pink slip.

This kind of thing really makes me seethe.

It starts with the beans: Fair-trade movement gains momentum

While it is always fun to get together with extended family over the holidays, these holidays brought a rally of strange comments such as "so, it looks like you are joining a cult...""well, you cannot possibly want anymore children, you can't afford it...""you have to be moderate...""those poor kids, they cannot even watch Charlie Brown's Christmas because you don't have cable...those poor kids...""why does your wife like to wear long skirts? This is 2003..." Many of the same family remarked and were stunned at how well behaved and non-materialistic our children are, yet pity our children for being forced to endure a crazy extreme lifestyle that teaches them to appreciate family and cooperation over material things and self-indulgence(although you may not know it if you were a fly on the wall here).

So, I left the last family get together wondering what exactly is "moderate" or "too extreme"?I suppose moderate means first of all, how much of the secular world are you willing to allow your children exposed too. My husband and I thought we were rather "moderate" because we do not believe in cutting something secular out, for no other reason than it is secular.