Science! Culture! Facebook! (Seven Quick Takes (12))

I told my husband several hours ago that I was going to bed early. So I don't really know why I'm sitting here typing after 11pm, thinking "Hey, it's still Friday! I can do seven quick takes!" I didn't sleep well last night and am feeling a bit delirious and probably shouldn't be blogging at all, so please forgive (or forget) any weirdness.


1. There have been a few evenings in the past month where I suddenly looked up from my computer screen and told Keith that Facebook was turning me into a stalker. One of those instances: I saw a friend tagged in a picture and thought, hold on, is he getting chubby, or is it just the angle of the photo? And I spent a good five or ten minutes scrolling through old pictures to see if he had gained weight. I know I have problem, I just really, really hope I'm not the only one.

2. I also maaaay have looked up the "real" Facebook profile of a popular Catholic blogger (as oppose to the blog's Facebook page) and then said to Keith, "Hey look! [Popular Catholic blogger] commented on [other popular Catholic blogger]'s post!" And then I realized I was acting like a stalker again.

3. Does it make it more or less creepy that I'm confessing these things on my blog? I don't know. I like to talk about the weird things Facebook does to people now and then.

4. Tonight we argued about whether science and culture had anything to do with each other. Mostly it went along the lines of me saying, "Wait, that is NOT what culture means," and him saying, "Hold on, that is NOT what I mean by science." The first definition of culture that Google brings up is "the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively." I like that definition, although if spent more time thinking about it I might find it incomplete. Hard to say at 11pm. Anyway, I think that definition provides plenty of fuel for my argument that science certainly IS a part of culture.

5. We were arguing because of this event, which I wish I had known about a little sooner. I'm hoping to go to the poetry reading tomorrow night, mostly because I would like to meet David Craig. I've interacted with him via email (not that I expect him to remember me!), and he teaches poetry at Steubenville.

6. Anyway, my friend Stephanie brought this event to my attention. Her brother is a priest who played a large role in organizing it. (He's also the godfather of my godson, which makes him my ... I don't know. Anyway, he also concelebrated our wedding Mass.) Stephanie is expecting her third baby and due THIS SUNDAY so when she called at 9pm I was certain she was in labor. Nope! Spare a prayer for her if you will; the waiting is always so hard!

7. I have a sinus infection and it is way past my bedtime. Goodnight. :)

what words can do

You remember Uncle Roy on his knees, hammer in his hand, mouth full of nails--a man bending to do his work, calm at last, strangely grateful--a father humbled by hurt, building a ramp for his fifteen-year-old son's wheelchair. [...] He let the hammer speak: one word at a time, one word over and over.

Sweet Mary Mother of God slit the man's violet scar to slip her own bright heart inside him. She took his in return, pierced and still bleeding. Enough, she said. Let me love you. She's not afraid of grief. You think I don't know? Tulanie's pain has lifted Roy's rage out of him.

(from The Voice of the River, by Melanie Rae Thon)

(Roy is a veteran (Vietnam?) who was sent home after being wounded, and whose wife left him because of the anger he carried after his experience; his son, Tulanie, was paralyzed waist-down in an accident.)

This novel is half fiction, half poetry. I was a little scared to read it, after In This Light, which was often too dark and gritty for my tastes.

Not that I can't read fiction that acknowledges darkness; not that I need happy endings. But I want to feel that I am seeing the darkness of what's human and broken as God sees it: not through eyes of despair or resignation, but redemption. And this book ... this book. I wish I could write it.