June 2005 Archives

You can reach NPR here. You can also contact the ombudsman if you have general concerns about programming (including bias in reporting styles).

NPR : Struggling Filipinos Denied Family Planning Options

by Michael Sullivan
Morning Edition, June 28, 2005 · Poor women in the Philippines are finding it harder to get access to contraceptives and family planning methods. The government won't permit distribution at public health clinics, and some private clinics are closing.

tTe Kaiser Family Foundation quotes the report here. I am concerned that this report is not as in depth as it should be. I am trying to compose my own letter to NPR, but I think that it would be good for all who care about this topic to also chime in. Feel free to send me a copy of your letter if you so choose. (or put it in the comments box).
If you decide to write to NPR, I suggest that you compose your letter on your own word processing software, and then cut and paste to their email interface. I once lost a lengthy letter when the computer dumped me off the internet in mid-send.

The Phillipine Bishops on June 28, 2005

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THE WORD TODAY

The parable of the unjust and murderous vinedressers ends with these prophetic words, which Jesus Christ applied to himself: “The stone which the builders rejected, has become the cornerstone.” Indeed, Jesus would be rejected by the leaders of the Jewish people of his time. Then Jesus will be the foundation of the New People of God, the Church.

But we can also apply these words in a spiritual sense. Very often, the values which the world rejects are the very values which should serve as the foundation for a strong civilization.. For example, the Christian virtue of chastity is like the cornerstone of strong marriages and of stable families. If spouses do not know how to be chaste, they will find it hard to be faithful. And without faithfulness, the family institution becomes unstable. But by promoting immoral sexual behavior (“safe sex”, contraceptives) with the pretense of reproductive health, some of our leaders will end up undermining the foundations of our society.
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Ephesians 5 challenge

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1. Why do you think this passage is such a incendiary one for women and men?
It is incendiary because it calls for specific behaviours and attitudes that are counter-cultural. In our time, the counter-cultural part is that the wife submits her will to her husband's - in other times the counter-cultural commandment was that the husband be willing to sacrifice his very life for the sake of his wife.

1 1/2. Was it ever that way for you? If so, how was your heart changed?
I was unwilling to have this passage read at our wedding, and my dear husband was willing to have an alternate Epistle read. I was raised as a liberal feminist of the Ms. magazine and gender neutral sort, and even though I became Catholic at a fairly young age (late teens) it took decades for my heart to become softened and healed. I confused the idea of submission with the concept of being an abused doormat (because that is what I saw around me and what I was taught to expect if I didn't 'stick up for myself').

My heart was changed slowly and through love and patience. There was not a single 'aha' moment but eventually I was able to see the truth without being blinded by my experience of abuse of trust. When every first marriage in one's family, for 3 generations, has ended in divorce, one tends to have a deep distrust of marriage. When one's childhood experience watching marriage is that infidelity and betrayal is the norm, one is deeply wounded - as I was. So I think that ultimately my ability to trust even a little bit and to be able to submit, even reluctantly, is a miracle and a divine gift.

I guess that the big thing for me was realizing that my husband eventually did reach the point where he was willing to climb on that cross for me if that is what it would take. We are both called to be obedient to the Lord - the only real question is what form that obedience will take.

2. What is God trying to tell us through St. Paul in this scripture reading?
Men and women, husbands and wives, are different. But both are called to obedience to the will of God. That obedience takes different forms as suits our different natures.

3. How does a misunderstanding or lack of understanding of God's plan for marriage revealed through this scripture damage marriages?
The damage is incalculable. When both partners are jockeying for power there is not the chance to support each other through the trials that life sends, and it makes it more likely that the marriage will founder upon those trials. Marriage isn't 50-50 - it's more that both need to be willing to give 100% and also willing to accept the gifts offered from the other.


4. How can men and women come to understand it better?
Prayer, penance, child-raising. Lather, rinse, repeat. If for some reason children are not a part of the marriage, then there should still be some kind of jointly enacted spiritual parenthood. The rearing of children is incredibly humbling and is a lesson in tolerating uncertainty and working jointly. Not to be forgotten also is the need for frequenting the Sacraments to renew the graces given in Matrimony.

For those single persons who need to understand this, I suggest a close study of a successful marriage in your family or friends.

Catholic hospital helping the community

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St. Mary's in Victorville CA :Reaching out

why smoke detectors are important

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Letters to a son

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from Maggie Gallagher
I don't understand why so many people are surprised that sex leads to pregnancy.

I'll get back to this later. maybe today, maybe tomorrow. However, please feel free to take up the challenge yourselves - either on your own blogs or in the comments of my or Kate's blog. (I'd say post it on HMS, where the whole meme started, except that they don't have comments boxes!
Here are the questions:

Read the passage from Ephesians 5:21-33:


21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.
24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,
27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—
30 for we are members of his body.
31 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."
32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband
Answer these questions:

1. Why do you think this passage is such a incendiary one for women and men?

1 1/2. Was it ever that way for you? If so, how was your heart changed?

2. What is God trying to tell us through St. Paul in this scripture reading?

3. How does a misunderstanding or lack of understanding of God's plan for marriage revealed through this scripture damage marriages?

4. How can men and women come to understand it better?

It just gets better every week!

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The new edition of Spero News | is up.

should be interesting

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read it and weep

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For all fathers everywhere

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(And that includes all our spiritual fathers)
Thank you for all the sacrifices you have made through the years.
May God continue to bless and enrich you with his Mercy.
Happy Father's day.

The Crossroads Initiative

Lots of great resources for this year of the Eucharist.

A letter from the bishop Bend Oregon

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Bishop survives accident by the grace of a 'very loving God'
06/16/2005 Bishop Robert Vasa

BEND - It was a phenomenal, perhaps even sensational, accident and as far as I know, miraculously, no one was injured. The driver swerved left to avoid an unexpected deer, lost control and swerved back right, again overcompensating, and then swerved left again in a vain attempt to regain control. At that point in the road there were three lanes, and as the driver made his last swerve left, it appeared that it was impossible to avoid a head-on collision with an oncoming vehicle. That would have been very bad. A further swerve right would have ensured such a collision, and so the white Tahoe left the road at nearly 55 miles per hour at a 45 degree angle to the road, very possibly sideways. From there it appears that the Tahoe proceeded sideways and backwards down the steep 20-foot brush- and rock-lined embankment and at some point turned onto its roof for the remainder of the ride. This appears to have happened when, proceeding backward the Tahoe hit some large rock and most likely flipped lengthwise onto its roof. Then the ride mercifully stopped with the Tahoe resting on its top in the eight inches of water running in the creek at the bottom of the ditch into which no one would intentionally drive.

under whose banner will I fight?

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and miles to go

Barbara Hall pointed out this homily.

APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION from Pope Paul VI as archived by Gerard (may he rest in peace) Serafin.

Karen Marie posted this link a while back, and given all the angst around right now, I thought this might be of interest. I also highly recommend going back and reading Mr. Serafin's home page and following the links. Please pray for his soul. He was taken from us quite suddenly, and St. Blogs is the lesser for his absence.

deep thoughts from my dearest husband

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just arrived in the mail

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from Requiem Press
The Two Towers by John Meehan
I'm holding off reading it, want to John read it first.

no big surprise

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You scored as Roman Catholic. You are Roman Catholic. Church tradition and ecclesial authority are hugely important, and the most important part of worship for you is mass. As the Mother of God, Mary is important in your theology, and as the communion of saints includes the living and the dead, you can also ask the saints to intercede for you.

Roman Catholic

100%

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan

82%

Neo orthodox

68%

Fundamentalist

54%

Emergent/Postmodern

54%

Reformed Evangelical

36%

Modern Liberal

36%

Charismatic/Pentecostal

32%

Classical Liberal

32%

What's your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com
via bene diction

They didn't think their audience would be interested.
Outcomes of planned home births with certified professional midwives: large prospective study in North America -- Johnson and Daviss 330 (7505): 1416 -- BMJ
Planned home births with skilled attendants are safe for the majority of women and their babies. For women who are healthy and motivated, they may be safer than hospital birth.
The CPM (certified professional midwife) credential is based upon book learning assessed by a standardized test, practical learning under supervision, and a set of standardized assessments of various manual skills. Many states in the USA have elected to use this credential as the entry point for licensure as a direct entry (non-nurse) midwife. Virginia is the latest state to join the movement.

home sweet home

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I got in at MHT around 2230 on june 16, wired and exhausted. I go to conferences primarily to touch base with my friends and allies, and it was good to do so. But by nature I am more of a recluse than I seem, and spending several hours each day surrounded by crowds of people, no matter how dear they are to me, is very exhausting. I find it worthwhile to pay the extra $$ to stay in the conference hotel so that I can escape to the room for 5 to 15 minute breaks away from it all.
John's gout is doing much better, though he still has twinges and is still taking anti-inflammation medication and following a fairly restricted diet. I did a little research and found that a few sources suggest that black cherries (fresh, frozen, or juiced) contain a substance that helps to break up and excrete the uric acid crystals of gout, so we are also trying that. Many thanks for all the prayers.
It's good to be home. The CSA started last week, and we got a head of lettuce, some green garlic, pea tendrils, 3 tomatoes, and some spinach greens. I made salad for dinner last night but forgot to use the tomato. But half the lettuce is left for tonight. I will probably pan-braise the spinach with a little of the green garlic and olive oil - John is not allowed to eat spinach right now, alas. I need a good recipe for the pea tendrils. Every year I do the same thing with them (steam with a little butter added) and it is getting a bit boring. But they are not an item with tons of recipes in the standard cook books. Erik makes an excellent green garlic soup, but I don't think I have enough of them to use that recipe. Will have to explore.
We still haven't put in our vegetable garden, and maybe we won't be able to this year. The CSA really does provide a great base for good eating, and there is also the farmer's market. I'm a bit bummed out because when I left for DC, the brussels sprouts were blossoming and when I got back, the plants had been stripped bare of their blossoms and leaves by some maurauding pest. So I don't know if we will plant our own. I know that we should.
The rhubarb is still blooming. I am really wanting to harvest some - but of course rhubarb is also on the verboten list during an acute gout attack. Oxalic acid crystals, or so they say. I have been trying to find an accurate and evidence based list of dietary interventions for gout, but there is a lot of variability in the lists and not a lot of objective evidence. I guess the availability of drug therapy has decreased the incentive for basic research.

Wild at Heart

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It is interesting what comes to me through my google news search feature - like
this

To have a Catholic and Jacobite wife on his arm might have been a social embarrassment once Stubbs moved to London, but such a woman would surely be the key to his circle of friends during his five or six years' residence in York. With a single exception, all the individuals who can now be marked down as his associates in the city were either Jacobites or members of York's small and embattled papist community. The most significant of these was Dr John Burton, a highly politicised man-midwife, who commissioned Stubbs to etch the anatomical illustrations in his book Essay Towards a Complete New System of Midwifery . Burton himself had narrowly escaped the gallows after making contact with the Pretender during the 1745 rebellion, and would later become a pivotal character in Laurence Sterne's Yorkshire epic Tristram Shandy , in which he was cast as the bungling medic Dr Slop.

A UK midwife blogs

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disordered desires in another context

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ouch

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Please pray for my dear husband. Upon our return from California last week, he started to notice some twinges in his foot which as of Saturday night, morphed into a really bad gout attack. I mean bad. I mean bad enough that he was put on colchicine, which is very effective but has horrendous side effects that delicacy forbids me to enumerate. And I am not there to take care of him, either.
His first really bad gout attack also happened when I was away from home for midwifery stuff.
The last week has also been rough in terms of spiritual attack kinds of stuff.
I went to the National Shrine yesterday and spent quite some time wandering around and praying. Might try to blog on it later.

where I was today and what I was doing

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Fertility: Support Reproductive "Choice" in Birthing!
I would appreciate anyone who feels like so doing to write an email or letter to your legislative representative in favor of this. As long as we have this kind of system of paying for health care, I think it is only just that those who perform the same work receive the same compensation.

Please continue to pray

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Abigail Witchalls told her baby is safe
This is the young woman who was early in her first trimester when she was viciously attacked. She and her baby still face quite an uphill struggle, but things are definitely improving.

on the road

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blogging briefly from a way overpriced hotel in washington dc
4 middle aged midwives sharing a very compact hotel room, two to a bed.
I brought an airbed along but there doesn't seem to be floor space for it. Oh well, at least there is high speed internet access - even if the price is a little steep.
One thing I really like about these conferences is the chance to reconnect with old friends in the birth biz. One of these is Robbie Davis-Floyd. Now, I don't know how many of you have heard of her work, but she is an anthropologist who started studying birth in America (especially the USA) in the early 1980s. I met her for the first time in 1985 at an ICEA conference in Chicago. At that time, she was working on her book Birth as an American Rite of Passage. She and I got into a conversation after that conference, and for the last 19 years we have been reconnecting at this or that conference. I learned today that she has a new book in the works, Mainstreaming Midwives: The Politics Of Change. I guess I know where some of my Mother's Day amazon gift certificate will go!

I was looking around to see if Ina May Gaskin was here. So far, I haven't seen her, but there are a couple of the Farm folk here. Just saw them across the room, but haven't had a chance to say hi. However, tomorrow night will be the MANA reception, and if she is at the conference she will be at that event.

Other old friends encountered included Barbara Harper, who told me that she has a new edition of her book Gentle Birth Choices available. This one includes a DVD, I think. I have to stop by her booth on the exhibit floor tomorrow and check it out.

On a somewhat disappointing note, I observed once again how much of nurse-midwifery is connected to the contraception industry. The name badge holders we are given (really neat little pouches with zipper compartments for cash and cards) are all sponsored by NuvaRing. The swipe card for the exhibits is also an ad for the ParaGuard IUD. The fabric bag given out with all the registration paper in it is an advertisement for all the Ortho contraceptive products.
On the exhibit floor, there is one booth for NFP - it is the Georgetown University's Cyclebeads being promoted (along with the 'two day' method). I would estimate that close to half the available floor space for exhibits was devoted to various other methods of contraception, including an experimental form of female sterilization using a caustic chemical (quinacrine) as well as a booth promoting an office based hand held uterine aspiration device (usable for both 'cleaning up' after a miscarriage and for performing first trimester abortions).
It is ACNM's 50th anniversary this year, and to celebrate they held a gala party at the opening Saturday night. Of course, this was also a fundraiser, but the ticket prices were reasonable. I had been planning to attend until I learned that the honored speaker was going to be Faye Wattleman, and after I had protested to ACNM (without even getting the courtesy of a reply) I elected to boycott the event. If you read her bio, you will understand why.
Tonight's fundraising event was a lot more fun, anyhow. The Capitol Steps is political humour that skewers idiocies on both the left and the right. Equal opportunity satire, often harsh but extremely funny. My favorites were "Super California Recall Freak Show Was Atrocious"
("Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious") and "Help Rwanda" ("Help Me Rhonda"). I was ROTFLMAO - actually I was laughing so hard that I started wheezing and realized that I had left my inhaler back in the hotel room.

Lest you think that I am having entirely too much fun, I have already collected 4 hours of continuing education and on Tuesday, I will join some of my colleagues on Capitol Hill as we lobby our federal representatives for equity in reimbursement, affordable malpractice insurance, and other boring but important issues. Erik, don't laugh! I know that you would prefer a dictatorship, but I have to work within the sytem we currently have.

tagged by pam and bene

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Total Number of Books I Own/ Have Owned: I have no clue, but I am sure that it is in the tens of thousands, maybe even more. I grew up in a book family. My mom subscribed me to children's book clubs from about the age of 3 onwards. I turn around and look at the wall of my bedroom, and I see about 500 books on that one wall - and that doesn't begin to include the books next to my desk, scattered across the headboard, piled on the floor, nor does it include the books shelved in every room of the house or boxed up in the garage awaiting shelf space. Or the ones on the shelves in my office at work.

Last Book I Bought: good question. I bought 2 of them at the Barnes and Noble next door to the hotel in CA last weekend - Chesterton's The Everlasting Man and Sherwin Nuland's The Doctor's Plague. Just before that, I bought Patricia Cornwall's Portrait of a Killer.

Books I'm Reading Now:
I am trying to get through Everlasting Man, interspersed with Portrait of a Killer, with side trips to whatever book catches my eyes. I have ADD (for real) and it shows up in my reading habits, especially when I am under stress. The last books I finished were a reread of Thomas Merton's Seven Storey Mountain (the plane to CA) and The Doctor's Plague (plane coming home). still trying to decide what to take on the plane tomorrow.


Five Books That Have Meant A Lot to Me
(I assume this excludes the standards like the Bible, the dictionary, and the Encyclopedia Brittanica)
This is a real tough question, because I get so much out of practically every book I read. 50 years as a bibliovore makes choosing significant books excruciatingly hard.
The first book I remember reading all by myself was Peter Cottontail (Beatrix Potter)
The first book I had confiscated by my parents was Revolt in 2100/ Methusaleh's Children (Robert A Heinlein) I was 9 at the time.
The first book confiscated by a teacher was A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'Engle) - and he took away my library card for 2 weeks, also. 6th grade
BTW, the books were not confiscated for content, but rather because I was reading instead of doing other stuff that the adults deemed more important.
The first convert testimony book I read was The Seven Storey Mountain
And the first book I read on childbirth (and the one that started me down the path to midwifery) was my mom's copy of Childbirth Without Fear - when I was 10 years old.

Tag Five Other Bloggers to Do This - If they Wish

lets try the gen x revert
jeanetta
dev thakur
holly
Mr. Curley

found via Open Book

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The following link will pop right into music and video for the site, you then will need to click on the specific item. It is in Windows media, so you apple folks will need to find a pc to see it. It is worth it.
Nick Cannon - Can I live

dinner at Erik's

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The arrangement was that we would meet Erik at his folk's house sometime after 5 PM. We checked out of our hotel after brunch with the kids and drove the rental car to Sacramento and visited Old Town - a place I really liked when I first visited it in 1976, but one that has since become increasingly more commercial and touristy. Still, it was nice to walk about and get an ice cream and all that stuff.
We then drove across town to a grocery store that Erik suggested as a foodies mecca, Corti Brothers. He was right. I could have spent several hours just walking up and down the aislec checking out all the goodies. However, as I had already purchased close to 30 pounds of other groceries to bring home to NH (Rosarita green chili/lime frijoles, Hinode calrose rice, S&W specialty beans, and desert flower honey) I restrained myself. I grabbed a bottle of french limonade, (sparkly and pink), a baguette for my daughter the carb queen, and some brie to contribute to the appetizers.
Two years ago, when we visited Erik on our last long vacation trip, we met up at his home in Oakland. The lovely Amalia was, of course, younger then, and she did not remember us. But we remembered her. She is quite a charming child, outspoken as one would expect. Melanie was not able to make it across the bay as she needed to be in the office early Monday AM. Conversation was. as expected, most excellent and covered the usual gamut from art and architecture to politics and public radio. But on to the menu!

We started with tapas of spanish (not mexican) chorizo, accompanied by anchovy stuffed spanish olives, and manchego cheese slices covered with quince paste. We also sampled a rustic fig/anise bread, and brought out the baguette and the brie for those in need of blander flavors. Drinks with tapas - vermouth cocktails x 3 adults, 'sparky' and still water for the younger generation. We sat in the kitchen and chatted, nibbled, and watched Erik in action. Erik made me and himself martinis with his Bombay gin, John passed on this one. I was allowed to help Erik to shuck the fava beans that were part of the dinner preparation, but otherwise I just watched.
Menu for dinner:
Risotto with fava bean puree and sugar snap peas (asparagus had been planned but was unavailable that day)
Salad of wild arugula, dressed with vinaigrette
Pork loin with sage sauce, pot roasted on the stove top.
for dessert, premium vanilla ice cream with mixed berry sauce.
A nice white wine with the risotto, a disappointing chianti with the pork.
We dined al fresco. After dinner my dear daughter plunged into helping with the cleanup (I am proud of her for that, no one asked her). We eventually all settled into our various beds for the night, and in the morning we went to the naked city cafe for breakfast. Pastry, espresso, chai, and teas brewed properly. I mean that they had loose leaf tea and brewed it in china pots. DD was disappointed by the chai - it did not have the spice blend that one would expect and was too sweet, and almost tasted of rose water. But I was very happy with my darjeeling.
We then went back to Erik's folk's place, packed up our stuff, and headed to the airport. After turning in the rental car, I realized that my Palm Pilot had fallen out of my purse sometime that morning. Ultimately it was found to be at the cafe, and Erik kindly went and got it, and brought it to the airport just in time.
And so we came home and immediately plunged into the usual chaos of everyday life.
I'm heading out in about 14 hours to catch a plane into Dulles for a conference at the Wardman Marriot in downtown Washington DC. I will have the laptop along and I am pretty sure there will be internet access. If you who live in the area want to try to connect, leave me an email with contact info. My schedule is pretty tight but I would love to meet up with some of you.

church renovation

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Last Sunday we went to a mass of convenience, 7 AM at the parish church closest to the hotel where we were staying. That happened to be Holy Spirit Parish in Fairfield CA, a large suburban parish with a school. We got there a few minutes early, found a decent parking spot, and walked to what we thought was the back of the church (and probably was, when the building was originally constructed. Walked in the door, and looking straight across there was a glassed in area (probably the original sanctuary) with a baptismal font and next to that, the golden tabernacle. The altar had been moved to what was once the left hand wall, and the pews rearranged in the round more or less - so that they all faced the altar but some were angled. The choir and the organ were on what had once been the right hand wall, directly facing the altar and the crucifix that hung behind the altar. Directly beneath the crucifix were a set of chairs, much as one would see in a cathedral.
I found it most disconcerting, but couldn't really identify why. The tabernacle was not off in a broom closet, it was in a position of honor and there was much genuflection by those who walked past it to enter the nave of the church. The pew arrangement meant that there was really no more than 10 rows between the altar and the wall, so that it was no longer easy to hide in the back and sneak out. It was obvious that a lot of thought and care had gone into the renovation, and given that most California churches have good reasons to avoid using the choir lofts (most of them are not structurally sound after the earthquakes of the 1980s and 1990s) it made sense to have the choir and organ where it was.
I invite those with more architectural knowledge to weigh in on what is apparantly the latest fad in church renovation - turning the orientation 90 degrees. MY quick observation was that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to have a procession of any kind. The stations of the cross were all on the wall that faced the altar, but with the organ etc midway between them, it would also be difficult if not impossible to walk the stations. I also think that this arrangement might eliminate the niches for statuary - maybe that is intentional, maybe accidental. I just don't know.
The congregation was obviously devout and very multi-ethnic. I saw Filipino, Mexican, Korean, Vietnamese, African, and also many Anglo and mixed ethnicity individuals and families. The music was standard OCP but all the mass parts including the Gloria were sung. Did I mention that the church was completely full? If that was the turnout for the 7 AM mass I would bet it got to SRO for the later masses.

great news!!!!!!

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what I have been up to

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Last week feels like last year (do you ever feel that way?). My husband was best man at a wedding in California on Saturday June 4. He flew out early Thursday morning while I was still at work. I worked 36 hours through (full day Wed, on call all night that night, and a full day Thursday) and flew out Friday AM so that I could be there for the "bridal shower" (actually a get together of all the ladies) Friday night. Our elder son and his girlfriend drove up from Southern California, our younger son, his girlfriend, and his next sister drove down from Oregon, and our youngest was scheduled to catch a very early plane from NH Saturday morning (Prom the night before).
Let me backtrack a bit. The groom from this wedding has been a family friend for over 30 years. He is in age somewhere between me and John, and he is also our youngest child's godfather. He has never been married - has come close a few times but something always came up. His bride was actually his High School sweetheart, who was widowed a few years ago. The wedding invitation featured their Junior Prom picture. So it was pretty important that we go to the wedding, despite my concern about it not being a church wedding.
The actual wedding took place outside, at the end of a short train ride into the countryside near Suisun CA. The reception was at the Western Railway Museum. The logistics were such that everyone involved had to be on the wedding train on time for a 4 PM departure, ride the train to the end of the line (about 20 minutes), have the ceremony, and ride the train back to the museum for the catered buffet reception. We had arranged that our younger son would drive to the Sacramento Airport and pick up the youngest at 2 PM, and hightail it back to the museum in time to catch the train and see the wedding.
0500 Saturday AM, my cell phone rang in the hotel room. I groggily grabbed it, and when I saw that the caller ID was out home phone #, I was suddenly wide awake and full of adrenaline.
"Mom,"she said in tears and sobs," I set 12 alarms and I missed my plane". Me: " I told you to go straight to the airport after prom."
"Well, we didn't do anything after prom and I thought that I could take a nap" with wails and sobs.
Me:" Get dressed, grab your stuff, and go to the airport and I will call you back with more instructions."
I ended up getting her on a flight into Oakland that landed at 4PM, and she then took a BART train almost to the end of the line where her brother picked her up (Left after the vows) and got her back to the reception in time for the last of dinner and cake. Her other (almost 23 y/o)sister who was present caught the bouquet (although not exactly the one the bride was carrying for the actual ceremony - that one had been left behind when the train took off and so she had a makeshift bouquet of extras from the boutonierres).
Got back from the reception in time to spend a half hour in the hot tub at the hotel and sleep. Got up the next morning, went to Mass at a local parish (worth its own post), had brunch with the other kids before they all headed home, and went to Sacramento to do tourist things and have dinner with Erik at his folks house.
to be continued

Home birth in the Big Apple

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Home Delivery Is Available - New York Times

Dawn should have written the headline - pizzas are delivered - babies are born!

HMS blog has had a great thread on childbirth.
do read
will comment more later when I'm home (I hope)
Did I ever say how glad I am that hotels have started including high speed access as an amenity?


Midwifery is being attacked from every angle (as always).

Hospital midwives’ hours are being cut.

A birth center is closing.

A licensed midwife practicing at home is losing her license.

We need to unite, as supporters of midwifery in LA, to protect a woman’s right to birth as she chooses and to embrace the amazing men and women who serve as midwives. Have you always wanted to support midwifery or your local midwife but you just weren’t sure how? Now is the time and your time, energy, and talents are sorely needed!

What are we doing?

Forming a non-profit, like a local version of citizens for midwifery, that would serve to:

§ fund a Los Angeles Area Midwives web site and brochure that would list every midwife who practices in Los Angeles, Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange Counties.

§ Offer scholarships to families who want to hire a midwife but can’t afford to pay out of pocket

§ Disseminate information to the greater Los Angeles community about the benefits of midwifery care

§ Help keep the greater Los Angeles childbirth community networked so that “the right hand knows what the left is doing”

§ Host a fair centrally located in Los Angeles focused on midwives and better birth

Planning a “better birth” or “with woman” fair to honor midwives that will occur sometime in 2006

How do you get involved?

Join us at Diane West’s home (1820 Glenwood Rd Glendale, CA 91201) on June 11, 2005 from 11 am – 4 pm??? to get to know other “movers & shakers” in the childbirth community and to direct your time, energy and talents in a more specific direction. Drinks and snacks will be provided but please feel free to bring a bag lunch to more fully sustain yourself! We will be meeting in her backyard so dress appropriately (she has trees and we’ll set up a canopy for some shade). For directions, see the end of this message.

What is needed?

Non-profit:

General: People to get the non-profit off the ground. One lawyer has offered to incorporate the non-profit and pay for all the appropriate filings for incorporation. Another lawyer has offered to help us file our 501(c)3. But we still need to develop a mission statement and strategic plan. We also need to create a board of directors and figure out how to begin soliciting donations. And of course, develop a budget!

Networking: the majority of doulas are networked through DASC; many homebirthers are networked through HAMS; we need to figure out how to network the childbirth educators and how to make sure that everyone who births with a midwife knows how to support us and how to join HAMS if they want to stay active in the childbirth community

Develop the website and brochure

Fair:

Facilities: Reserve a date and space at Griffith Park or another centrally located park for a Saturday in 2006 either near Mother’s day or in October (midwifery month). Develop a site plan for the fair and work with parks & rec, fire dept., health dept., police dept, etc.

Sponsorship Development: Begin thinking about and talking to potential sponsors for the fair. Identify potential vendors and create a vendor application, research and apply for grants

Marketing & Outreach Conceptualize how to market such an event, create news releases, etc.

Budget & Finances Work out a budget and assign money to each of the other teams, monitor spending, etc.

Programming Secure speakers, plan seminars and activities, decide if we need an area for kids, etc.
for more info contact:

Peaceful Beginnings

Please forward this message to anyone who might be interested in helping

Intriguing commentary

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see you later!

| | Comments (2)

I'm leaving tomorrow to fly to California for a wedding. Will have the laptop along but probably won't be on it much. Have tentative plans to meet up with Erik (rants and recipes).
From 6/12 to 6/16 I will be in Washington DC for the ACNM annual meeting.

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