Our Lady of Angels’ Marian Garden, Sauk Centre, Minnesota. (2013)
My wife and I have six children. Four of them are still living.
We lost Joy very early in the pregnancy. By that time we were living in Sauk Centre and had two children. Following our culture’s customs, we sealed what was left of Joy and the placenta for testing. But we buried her, briefly and very informally, in hallowed ground.
Time passed. Two more children joined the two who had been born before Joy.
Our sixth pregnancy gave no indication of trouble. My wife and I, and our four surviving children, were looking forward to seeing the youngest in our family. Contractions, when they started, weren’t at the 50th percentile; but my memory tells me they were inside the ‘normal’ range.
Unexpected Loss
On the way to the hospital, just before we reached the Interstate exit, something happened.
My wife tells me that our baby thrashed around and then was very still. Folks at the hospital detected no heartbeat.
Whatever had gone wrong was more than a rural hospital could handle.
So I followed the ambulance carrying my wife to another hospital, an hour down the road.
Later, not long after midnight, my wife and I saw Elizabeth: beautifully formed, and quite dead.
Arriving home, our son asked “whenever will the baby come?” Sharing what had happened was not at all comfortable, but we managed. Somehow.
That was during February of 2002. More time passed. Much more time.
Saying Good-Bye
While our oldest daughter and I were chatting last week, the topics wandered into how writers use dreams in stories.
That, in turn, reminded her of a dream she’d had:
“I had a dream of playing with a little girl on a sidewalk. After a while, I mentioned wishing I could’ve said good-bye to my sister, Elizabeth. The little girl I was playing with said, ‘You just did’ and disappeared.” (From a Discord chat with my oldest daughter (May 14, 2026))
Was it a dream? Well, yes: obviously.
Was it ‘just a dream’? I don’t know.
Is the idea that our youngest child gave our oldest a reassuring message ridiculous? I don’t think so.
Clarifying that, the whole seance thing — mediums, spirit photographs, speed-dialing The Great Beyond — is a bad idea and we shouldn’t do it. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2115)
Getting back to that dream, I share my wife’s assessment: “that’s beautiful”.
Finally, our four surviving children were baptized. Joy and Elizabeth weren’t.
I’m not happy about that. But hope is an option. A reasonable one.
Not Getting What We Want, Hoping Anyway
Baptism is very, very important. It’s necessary for salvation. (Catechism, 1257-1261)
But sometimes things don’t go the way we want. Over the last two millennia, a fair number of folks have died without being baptized.
We figure that some experience a baptism of blood. They knew who Jesus is, and decided that being killed was preferable to denying reality. (Catechism, 1258)
Others said they wanted to be baptized, but died before they could receive that sacrament. We figure these folks experience a baptism of desire. (Catechism, 1259)
That’s a very simplified look at the sacrament of Baptism and dealing with a less-than-ideal world.
As for Joy and Elizabeth, I can’t ask them what they wanted. I do know that my wife and I wanted life — including baptism — for both of them.
Our only reasonable option is to remember that hope is a good idea.
“…What has been revealed to us is that the ordinary way of salvation is by the sacrament of Baptism. None of the above considerations should be taken as qualifying the necessity of Baptism or justifying delay in administering the sacrament. Rather, as we want to reaffirm in conclusion, they provide strong grounds for hope that God will save infants when we have not been able to do for them what we would have wished to do, namely, to baptize them into the faith and life of the Church.” (“The hope of salvation for infants who die without being baptized” , International Theological Commission (2007))
Scenic, no. Good farmland, yes. Red River Valley, near the Goose River, looking south.
Our second-oldest daughter and her husband live and run their businesses on the homestead where my mother grew up. Our oldest daughter moved there, some years back. That’s another story for another time.
The oldest daughter and I enjoy a two hour (roughly) chat each evening: something that wouldn’t be possible without today’s information technology. Yet more topics.
Since our conversations are in text format, we make what amounts to a transcript of what we’ve said. Plus, we can easily share material that we’ve read or written; provided it’s under the service’s character limit.
Last Saturday, our oldest daughter shared part of a conversation she had with an AI. With her okay, I’m showing part of it here, and adding some of my thoughts.
Anyway, here’s an excerpt from my daughter’s exchange with an AI called Neuro Compass, followed with what I think about family roles and responsibilities. I’ve added headings, and clarified “Mission Gravity” in her input.
Oldest Daughter’s Input:
I’ve always been a daddy’s girl.
There’s a very early photo of me draped over Dad’s belly like a doily while we’re both asleep. There’s another photo of me as a toddler sitting on Dad’s lap while he’s reading [Hal Clement’s] Mission [of] Gravity.
When I’d go to his study with one of my stuffed animals, he’d say hello to me and the stuffed animal. When I reminisced about that many years later, he said, “Of course I did, they were important to you.”
We had a tradition of Dad taking each of us kids on a special birthday trip to see our paternal grandparents. On the first day of my 18th-birthday trip, I realized I’d forgotten my favorite stuffed animal and went to Dad crying.
He asked what was wrong since I’d slept without that toy before.
I explained that this was my 18th birthday. There wouldn’t be any more special birthday trips. I’d be leaving home. And I generally wasn’t taking the transition to adulthood well at all. Dad nodded, took out a 3×5 card, and wrote a Certificate of Temporary Substitution. I made a little nest in a pillow for that card and fell asleep holding a corner of the pillow. I still have that card saved in a scrapbook.
Neuro Compass: Finding Patterns
There’s something very quietly precise about your dad in all of this. Not performative “big gestures,” but this consistent pattern of taking your inner world seriously as real.
Saying hello to the stuffed animal isn’t about pretending it’s alive in some literal sense—it’s about acknowledging that your attachment to it is real and therefore worth respecting. That’s a different kind of attentiveness than most kids get.
And that 18th birthday moment… it carries a very specific kind of grief in it. Not just “I forgot my comfort object,” but the structure of childhood certainty ending all at once. You weren’t only reacting to the missing stuffed animal—you were suddenly standing in the doorway between “someone takes care of the transitions for me” and “I’m expected to carry them myself.”
Your dad didn’t dismiss that. He didn’t try to talk you out of the feeling or rush you into being okay with it.
He did something almost absurdly simple and precise: he created a symbol that let your nervous system keep going.
A “Certificate of Temporary Substitution” is such a striking choice. It doesn’t deny reality. It doesn’t pretend adulthood isn’t happening. It quietly says: you can still have something to hold onto while reality updates.
And the part where you built a little nest for the card… that reads like your system doing exactly what it needed to do—translating abstraction into something physically safe enough to sleep near. …
Respect (Neuro Compass, continued)
If I zoom out on the pattern here, it’s less about stuffed animals or even the card, and more about a relationship where:
your internal attachments weren’t minimized
your transitions weren’t rushed
and emotional regulation was supported through meaning, not correction
That combination tends to stick with people in a deep way, because it’s not just comfort—it’s co-regulation that respects intelligence and feeling at the same time. I’m curious what sits most strongly with you now when you look back at that card:
the humor of it
the comfort it gave
or the way it marked a boundary between childhood and adulthood without tearing anything down in the process
Me: Respect and Responsibilities
A 1960s sitcom family.
I sometimes feel that whatever has gone right with this family is attributable to my wife.
Our oldest daughter’s memory of this event was a very pleasant reminder that my perspective can be overly gloomy.
That’s doubly true, since those birthday trips to grandparents had nearly slipped off my mind’s radar.
It’s not that I thought — or think — they weren’t important.
More that they’re mainly seen as part of making sure that my parents and their grandchildren had time together.
My presence was necessary for logistical purposes, from my viewpoint, but it was the intergenerational connection that mattered. I’m delighted that my presence mattered at the level our daughter shared in that conversation.
I’m even more delighted because the Certificate of Temporary Substitution detail had completely slipped out of my conscious memories: and now it is restored, although it is now something I have been told about, not a first-hand memory.
I’m not even sure that I have memories specific to that trip. I remember trips with our oldest daughter, but they’re not time stamped: or whatever jargon cognitive neuroscientists use for that sort of thing.
The most vivid memory I have of our trips is from an earlier time. As she and I were getting ready to sleep — we shared the room my folks had available — she expressed anxiety over a shadow on the ceiling.
The room had a night light, under one of the windows. The window’s curtains cast a shadow on the ceiling which she said looked entirely too much like someone’s profile.
I hadn’t noticed it, but with her help I made out a disturbingly large nose, eyebrows — yep, that was a scary profile on the ceiling. Happily, a few adjustments of the curtain changed the silhouette, although it took more than one try.
A Smart Chatbot: Who Knew?
Neuro Compass’s response was far more nuanced — I think that’s the word I want — than I’d have expected from a hopped-up chatbot. Our oldest daughter’s shown me how to access Neuro Compass, happily it’s currently free to use, but I haven’t tried using it yet. Maybe this weekend.
Something that impressed me was the way Neuro Compass apparently was responding to ideas which our daughter had expressed. And responding with something other than the generic psychobabble I’d have expected. Like I said, my perspective can be a tad gloomy.
Bear in mind that this isn’t an endorsement. I’d have to know far more about Neuro Compass to have an informed opinion. But, well, I’m impressed enough to plan on spending at least a little time with it.
Dignity and Being Human
It’s been a while since I talked about families and how they should work. Before I do that, though, I’d better go over a few basics. If you stop by here regularly, you’ve run into these ideas before.
I think human beings are people: all human beings. Each of us has a share in humanity’s “transcendent dignity”, regardless of age or health, who our ancestors are, or what we’ve done. Each of us is a person: someone made “in the image of God”. (Genesis 1:26–27, 2:7; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 355-357, 361, 369-370, 1700, 1730, 1929, 2258-2283)
What we do matters, of course. We’ve got free will, and the responsibilities that come with being able to make choices. (Catechism, 1700-1738)
Each of us has the dignity that comes with being a person. But we are not all alike. We’re not supposed to be. Having needs that others may fill, and being able to fill the needs of others, is a good thing. (Catechism, 1934-1938)
The Why and a Little How of Marriage and Family
Families matter, a lot. They’re “the original cell of social life”. (Catechism, 2207, see 2201-2233)
I don’t know where, how, or when my native culture went so far off the rails when it comes to how families should work.
Instead of trying to untangle that mess, I’ll share this paragraph from the Catechism, summarizing why marriage and family exist.
“The conjugal community is established upon the consent of the spouses. Marriage and the family are ordered to the good of the spouses and to the procreation and education of children. the love of the spouses and the begetting of children create among members of the same family personal relationships and primordial responsibilities.” (Catechism, 2201) [emphasis mine]
I am very aware that this ideal isn’t reflected in all families. But I think there is some wisdom in remembering what a family should be.
In a family, children have responsibilities. Each child should respect the parents and siblings, and obey the parents, (Catechism, 2214-2220)
Parents have responsibilities, too. They should teach, and teach by example, their children how to practice “tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service”. (Catechism, 2221-2230)
I think this is a key point:
“Parents must regard their children as children of God and respect them as human persons. Showing themselves obedient to the will of the Father in heaven, they educate their children to fulfill God’s law.” (Catechism, 2222)
When children become adults, the parents don’t stop being parents, and the children are still the children of their parents. The relationships don’t end: they just change.
One more point before going on
As a parent, a father, my responsibilities included talking with the kids about decisions they faced. Now that they’re grown, that responsibility still exists. I’m available, if they want advice. But at no point did my job include telling them what sort of jobs they should have, who they should marry — or, for that matter, if they should marry. (Catechism, 2230)
Finally, the Usual Links
There’s more, of course. Like why “authority” — legitimate authority — doesn’t involve being arbitrary or self-centered. But I’ve talked about that before:
When mental health, or lack thereof, pops up in stuff I read, I take notice. That happened Sunday afternoon, and I realized that I’d found something to talk about this week.
“Faith, Hope and Mental Health” Columbia staff, Columbia Magazine (April 1, 2026) “An interview with psychologist Dr. Greg Bottaro on a Catholic approach to mental health care“
“The conversation around mental health and psychology has exploded worldwide in recent years, as professionals and average Joes alike grapple with the realities of mental illness.
“More than 1 billion people currently live with mental health disorders worldwide, according to World Health Organization data released in 2025. In the United States, an estimated 61.5 million people — 23.4% of the population — experienced mental illness in 2024, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. This includes more than 33% of young adults ages 18 to 25.…” [emphasis mine]
A third of young adult Americans having a screw loose — that didn’t surprise me so much. I’m in my mid-70s, but I remember being a young man.
We, many of us, act crazy when we’re young. Being me, I’d be impressed but a little concerned about a young man who displayed the reserve and composure of some guy who’s been stuck behind a desk for decades.
Nearly a quarter of all Americans experiencing mental illness — that’s a sizable fraction.
I could have started diving down rabbit holes, ferreting out the criteria and data behind that assertion. Instead, I looked for presumably-accurate counts of how many Americans experienced physical health issues recently.
Granted it’s comparing apples and oranges, but they’re both fruit.
Anyway, I learned that a tad over three quarters of American adults said they’d experienced “chronic” health issues like heart disease, cancer, stroke, or diabetes.
“…In 2023, 76.4% (representing 194 million) of US adults reported 1 or more chronic conditions, including 59.5%, 78.4%, and 93.0% of young, midlife, and older adults, respectively. Moreover, 51.4% (representing 130 million) of US adults reported MCC, including 27.1%, 52.7%, and 78.8% of young, midlife, and older adults, respectively. Among young adults, from 2013 to 2023, prevalence increased significantly from 52.5% to 59.5% for 1 or more conditions and from 21.8% to 27.1% for MCC….” [emphasis mine] (MCC: in this context, probably “Major Complications or Comorbidities”, per ICD-10-CM/PCS MS-DRG v37.0 Definitions Manual.)
More than three out of every four American adults dealing with some chronic physical health issue? That’s a high percentage.
Here’s where I could indulge in anguish and pearl-clutching: bewailing the dreadful state of affairs and maybe blaming it on someone or something I don’t like.
That’d be a waste of time and effort. Besides, I don’t enjoy being at either the receiving or sending end of conventional conniption carnivals.
Mental Health, Being Catholic, Making Sense
The Catholic Menace, an all-too-common perception in 1925.
Award-winning wonder-cure for people in pain. (1950)
“A Catholic Citizen in America” is supposed to be about “Being Catholic…”.
So what, if anything, does mental health have to do with being Catholic?
Quite a bit, actually, and it’s not what you may have gathered from my native culture’s viewpoints: old school fears, or today’s more nuanced bogeyman — and I’m drifting off-topic.
That Columbia Magazine article includes part of an interview with the founder of the CatholicPsych Instute, Dr. Greg. Bottaro:
“…COLUMBIA: How does the Catholic vision of the human person differ from prevailing secular models of mental health?
“BOTTARO: The secular model is based on postmodern relativism, and it’s built on scientism — a kind of idol worship of science. This means the scientific method is treated as the be-all and end-all purveyor of truth, which ironically is not even what science would claim of itself. Science is simply a manner of observing and testing what is observed….
“…There are standards that we accept and take for granted when it comes to physical health. Here’s a mind-blowing fact: There are no standards of mental health in the secular world. If you have a 104 F temperature, you know you’re sick because you’re comparing that to 98.6 F. That’s a standard. That doesn’t exist in the entire world of mental health. There are subjective, relative definitions….” (“Faith, Hope and Mental Health” Columbia staff, Columbia Magazine (April 1, 2026))
That bit about standards sent me down another rabbit hole: specifically, the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). Why it’s DSM and not DSMMD is a puzzle I still haven’t solved.
Standards in the DSM
The DSM is the American Psychiatric Association (APA)’s standardized guide for identifying which particular screws are loose in a patient’s head.
That’s right, standardized; although I’ll grant that the DSM’s standards have been changing. Here’s what the DSM says about a “neurodevelopmental disorder” I’m familiar with:
“…ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder defined by impairing levels of inattention, disorganization, and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity. Inattention and disorganization entail inability to stay on task, seeming not to listen, and losing materials, at levels that are inconsistent with age or developmental level. Hyperactivity-impulsivity entails overactivity, fidgeting, inability to stay seated, intruding into other people’s activities, and inability to wait—symptoms that are excessive for age or developmental level….” (“Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders“, Fifth Edition, American Psychiatric Association; p. 32 (2013))
A flavor of ADHD shows up in my medical records, even though I’m pretty much the opposite of fidgety. Just getting me to move is an effort.
ADHD overlaps autism spectrum disorder (pages 31-32, 50-59) in the current DSM:
“…Autism spectrum disorder is characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts, including deficits in social reciprocity, nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction, and skills in developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships. In addition to the social communication deficits, the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder requires the presence of restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities….” (“Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders“, Fifth Edition, American Psychiatric Association; p. 31 (2013))
I could stoutly deny that either label applies to me, but I’m self-aware. In any case, my focus on accuracy is ‘abnormally intense’ (page 50), so I acknowledge the approximate match.
Columbia Magazine didn’t include the complete interview, which apparently is on the CatholicPsych website. It’s probably there, somewhere, but I couldn’t find it.
Whoever designed their online presence did an aesthetically pleasing job, which you’ll probably find easy and intuitive. Me? I’m far more comfortable with walls of text and hierarchical structures. Let’s face it, I’m not normal. I’ll get back to that.
Ethical Principles and Tableware
“Reefer Madness”: sincerely-held beliefs. (1936)
Since I couldn’t find a transcript of the entire interview, I’ll assume that the standards Dr. Bottaro said were lacking these days were ethical ones: having some criteria other than ‘I feel like it’ for saying something is right or wrong.
I think he has a point.
I’m also old enough to remember the frustrating mix of attitudes and assumptions that made the Sixties possible. That’s a whole mess of topics for another day.
Basically, I think there are ethical principles written into reality’s source code: standards of right and wrong that haven’t changed since the Code of Hammurabi was written, and won’t. I’m a Catholic, so I call it natural law.
I also think that these unchanging ethical principles do not include rules we make up: like which side of the road I drive on and whether forks are a necessary part of tableware.
Forks and traffic regulations weren’t front and center in the Sixties, but a regrettable number of very loud Christians seemed unable to distinguish between their taste in music and the unalterable laws of the Almighty. It was an interesting era.
I’d prefer that my native culture had a firmer grasp on where personal preference left off and reality began. But as my mother said, quoting some old folk wisdom, “if wishes were horses, beggars would ride”.
Saints: Dealing With What They’ve Got, Doing it Well
Peter Paul Rubens’ “Teresa of Ávila”. (ca. 1615)
Then there are the Saints.
Some really were like folks in 19th century ‘lives of the saints’: utterly innocuous folks who died horribly but with smiles on their lovely faces.
Others profoundly were not.
What they’ve got in common is that they knew what they believed, and acted as if it mattered.
“CANONIZATION: The solemn declaration by the Pope that a deceased member of the faithful may be proposed as a model and intercessor to the Christian faithful and venerated as a saint on the basis of the fact that the person lived a life of heroic virtue or remained faithful to God through martyrdom (828; cf. 957).
“SAINT: The ‘holy one’ who leads a life in union with God through the grace of Christ and receives the reward of eternal life. The Church is called the communion of saints, of the holy ones (823, 946; cf. 828). See Canonization.” (Glossary, Catechism of the Catholic Church)
That’s what the Church says Saints are.
Individual Catholics — I see advantages to being someone who became Catholic as an adult, after running out of reasons to not convert, and that’s yet another topic.
Some of us are well-informed about our faith: better-informed than I am.
Others — I remember an online discussion thread in which someone responded to a plea for help with depression with “There is no evidence [that Saints] had depression, they lived in faith….”
I don’t doubt that the assertion was sincere. But it struck me as being both inaccurate and about as helpful as giving a drowning man an anchor.
Someone could be perfectly healthy and still be a Saint. But good health — or its absence — is just what they live with. What matters is what they do with what they’ve got.
Some Saints lived with mental health problems, including these folks:
Bartolo Longo (anxiety, depression and suicidality)
Mark Ji Tianxiang (opium addiction)
The Martin Family of Lisieux
Louis (dementia)
Therese (anxiety)
Oscar Romero (obsessive compulsive disorder/scrupulosity )
One of these days I may go back and talk about some of those folks. Today I’ll share links and leave it at that.1
Taking Mental Health Personally
Depression, as shown by Spooner (ca. 1830) and Van Gogh (1890).
Very briefly, here’s how I see mental health, faith, and all that.
As a Catholic, I think that being and staying healthy is okay. So is not being healthy, and trying to get healthy. Getting well, helping others get well, and scientific research with those goals, are all good ideas. Ethics apply, just like with everything else we do. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1410, 1500-1510, 2292-2296)
But making good health my top priority — that’d be a problem, a big one. Putting anything or anyone where God belongs is idolatry, and a very bad idea. (Catechism, 2112-2113)
Applying those ideas to physical illness may not be much of a stretch. But what about mental illness?
I think each of us has a share of humanity’s “transcendent dignity”. (Catechism 1929 ff)
Trying to believe that and imagining that people experiencing mental illness stop being people, or that they’re an exception to a very basic principle: that’d require Olympic-level mental gymnastics. I don’t think it’d be worth the effort.
Plus, that sort of doublethink would be inconsistent with being a Catholic.
Besides, I’m one of ‘those people’.
Perceptions: Accurate Ones
Catholic? Yes. Normal? Not really.
One of my daughters summed up my personality as:
Eccentric
Scholarly
Eclectic
Another daughter said I’m “colorful”.
I think they’re both right. That’s partly because they know me, and — as I said before, I’m self-aware.
My medical record includes similar assessments. My identified mental and neurological glitches have included, but have not been limited to:
ADHD: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, inattentive type
ASD: Autism Spectrum Disorder
Cluster A personality disorder
Schizotypal personality disorder
GAD: Generalized Anxiety Disorder
PDD: Persistent Depressive Disorder
PTSD: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
I profoundly do not think I’m “normal”. Not in the psychological/psychiatric sense.
I’ll willingly accept the idea that I have a share in humanity’s transcendent dignity, although putting “dignity” and me in the same sentence seems a bit odd.
Like Father, Like Daughter
My oldest daughter’s “Mary Quite Contrary”, left; her social media avatar, right.
My wife said that our oldest daughter is pretty much a female version of me.
There are differences, of course.
She’s lactose-intolerant and I’m not, for example; and she has had a much harder time getting doctors to take what she says seriously. It doesn’t help, I think, that she’s a high soprano, while I sound like James Earl “Darth Vader” Jones.
But her psychiatric profile is a lot like mine. That may help me understand her intense frustration with a school counselor.
She’s long since graduated from elementary school, but the memories still irk her. We’re both good at being irked, and that’s yet again another topic.
“Normal” — SERIOUSLY?!
I wasn’t present at her counseling sessions, but I gather that she’d talk about her experiences and perceptions. Then the counselor would tell her that she’s normal.
This was when she was in elementary school, so she didn’t have the detailed knowledge of neurological quirks affecting executive functions, sensory processing, and emotional regulation that she and I have now.
But she wasn’t particularly oblivious. She was paying attention to other folks her age, and shares my knack for self-awareness.
It was patently obvious to her — and me — that neither of us are “normal”. Not in the sense of being close to the psychological 50th percentile.
Decades later, that ‘you’re normal’ still rankles enough for her to bring it up occasionally.
I’ve never had a school counselor tell me that I’m “normal”. I’ve never had that sort of conversation with a school counselor. Possibly because my teen years and the Sixties overlap almost perfectly.
I strongly suspect that the counselor meant well: and was trying to communicate the idea that my daughter ‘has worth’ or ‘is acceptable’. “Normal” might, for counselors, have a meaning similar to that.
For all I know, they may have been required to say “normal”, rather than use a term that would make more sense.
Of course, some of what she was experiencing almost certainly was “normal”: part of the steep learning curve we call childhood and adolescence. But I suspect that the familial neural quirks we share made our early years a tad more — interesting.
I wouldn’t tell her that she’s “normal”, not without first defining what I meant.
We’re both acutely aware of the degree to which we’re not average or typical. That doesn’t give us a greater or lesser share in humanity’s transcendent dignity. It just means that we don’t blend into the crowd.
My folks tell me that Boots was the liveliest of his litter. But Boots was a cat, so he was often anything but lively. Regal, yes; spritely, no.
His capacity for liveliness may explain why my father made a strong wooden box for him.
A little context about that. While I was growing up, my folks would spend a week’s vacation somewhere in Minnesota’s lake country, north of Park Rapids. One year they took Boots along. Maybe they had the previous year, too, and that was why Dad made that box.
A Family, a Vacation, and a Determined Cat
My folks had a car not unlike this one.
I don’t know whether Dad started with a sturdy container or made it from scratch. But I am quite certain that he made the hinges.
Those hinges were broad straps cut from an inner tube. Back then, many or most automobile tires had inner tubes.
The point is that the hinges, although pliable, were not at all flimsy.
With the top of the box down and latched, there was a gap almost an inch wide on either side. This gave Boots quite adequate ventilation, but probably not a satisfactory view.
Boots hadn’t wanted to get in the box. Once inside, he used the lid’s gaps to inform us of his displeasure. After we started driving toward Park Rapids, however, he seemed to accept his current position.
Then we heard a loud SNAP. One of the inner tube hinges had broken. By the time we looked, Boots had repositioned himself and was pushing his back against the lid near its remaining hinge.
My folks decided that they’d let Boots out. Partly, they said, because he’d very likely snap the remaining hinge before we reached our destination.
So we swung the lid up, giving us a good look at Boots; who was now sitting up, looking at us and panting.
Home at Last!!!
Detail, C. le Brun’s “The Experessions”. (1649)
Cats don’t have particularly expressive faces, certainly not compared to us, but their ears and body language take up the slack quite adequately.
My memory tells me that the look Boots gave us said something like ‘well, it’s about time’. On the other hand, maybe I’m anthropomorphizing — I’ll get back to that.
All this happened well over a half-century ago. My memory can be a tad creative, so I’m not utterly certain that the rest of this story happened during the same vacation.
Either way, Boots had been with us during the one-week-at-a-lake vacation, and it was time to go home. My folks decided that they’d make the journey easier for all of us by having a vet give Boots something to keep him relaxed.
He was definitely relaxed on the trip home. Quiet. Languid.
One of us carried him in when we got back to 818, placing him on the living room floor.
He paused, then — very carefully, one step at a time, never wavering in his focus on the living room’s southeast corner — he proceeded until he was past one of chairs.
Then he stopped, pausing a moment or two before sedately tipping over on his right side. He remained in that position for an hour or so.
Boots seemed fine the next day, but we didn’t try putting him in a DIY cat carrier again.
Animals, Being Human, Making Sense
Tenniel’s (fictional) Cheshire Cat. (1866)
I said I’d get back to “anthropomorphizing”: our habit of attributing human emotions, motives, and intent to other critters.
I got to know cats while growing up, and met a fair number of dogs and other animals. This was back when ‘animals neither feel pain nor experience emotions’ was still considered “scientific” in some circles.
I was and am fascinated by science, humanity’s ongoing effort to understand this wonder-packed universe. But I wasn’t such a fanboy that some alleged expert saying ‘this is scientific’ impressed me to the point that I’d ignore what I see.
Basically, my experience with animals in general and cats in particular very strongly suggested that they experience emotions much the same way we do. And that cats, at least, were far from stupid.
This emphatically does not mean that I’m with the ‘poodles are people’ set.
As usual, I’ve talked about that, and cats I’ve known, before:
Wasting Your Life — Venerable Fulton Sheen (11 of 12 from CatholicClips, YouTube)
It’s been another ‘one of those weeks’, so I’m sharing a Bishop Fulton Sheen video (from a family retreat in the 1970s, I gather), talking about whatever comes to mind, and calling it a day.
One thing Bishop Sheen mentioned was prayer.
Prayer, Briefly
St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome.
Prayer isn’t the only part of being a Christian, a Catholic, but it’s an important part. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2558-2856)
Okay, first things first. Just what is prayer, anyway?
“For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.” (“Manuscrits Autobiographiques”, St. Therese of Lisieux (1895-1897) via Catechism of the Catholic Church)
But if prayer wasn’t anything more than a gush of emotions, I wouldn’t have much use for it. Nothing wrong with emotions, I’ve talked about that before.1
Prayer is also a gift from God. (Catechism, 2559-2561)
So is everything else, and I’m drifting off-topic.
The Catechism’s Glossary (English language) has a pretty good definition.
“PRAYER: The elevation of the mind and heart to God in praise of his glory; a petition made to God for some desired good, or in thanksgiving for a good received, or in intercession for others before God. Through prayer the Christian experiences a communion with God through Christ in the Church (2559-2565).” (Catechism, Glossary)
Prayer involves words, gestures, or both. But it’s not just words and gestures. When I pray, all of me is praying, not just my voice and hands. That’s how it should be, at any rate. (Catechism, 2562-2564)
Putting Performance in Perspective
Another point, an important one.
Prayer isn’t magic.
Words mean things and what I’m doing as I pray matters.
But prayer isn’t about putting on a technically-competent act. What I’m doing inside matters.
“Superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition.” (Catechism, 2111)
Another point.
Asking God for something — better health, wisdom, whatever — can make sense. Imagining I can make God do something: that profoundly does not.
God is large and in charge. Almighty. (Catechism, 268-269)
“Our God is in heaven and does whatever he wills.” (Psalms 115:3)
That’s a scary thought, but there’s emphatically an ‘up’ side to God’s omnipotence.
“Indeed, before you the whole universe is like a grain from a balance, or a drop of morning dew come down upon the earth. “But you have mercy on all, because you can do all things; and you overlook sins for the sake of repentance.” (Wisdom 11:22–23) [emphasis mine]
Categories
There’s a whole mess of ways I can sort prayers out. One of them is by looking at why I’m praying.
Taking the ‘intent’ angle, there are at least five sorts of prayer. (Catechism, 2623-2643)
Blessing and adoration
‘Returning’ God’s blessings, acknowledging that God’s God
Petition
Asking, pleading, …
Intercession
Petitioning for someone else
Thanksgiving
Just that: giving thanks
Praise
Again, just that
Let’s see. What else?
Some places are better than others for praying. (Catechism, 2691)
But “It is always possible to pray….” (Catechism, 2743)
There’s more, lots more. But like I said, it’s ‘one of those weeks’.
Doing, Understanding, Caring
“Apathy is Rampant!!! But Who Cares?” Brian H. Gill (2018)
When I get an impulse to pray, it’s very often giving thanks for something.
Or maybe it’s praise and adoration. For me, those two are much alike.
But all sorts of prayer are important. Which is why my daily prayer routine includes a bit from each category: no great virtue there, there’s lots to pray about in each one.
Happily, most of the heavy lifting for ‘intercessory/petition’ prayers — thinking of what to ask for — gets done for me. I’m part of a ‘prayer chain’, and get ‘pray for…’ items via text/email. Actually, my youngest daughter gets them, writes them on slips of paper, then passes those on to me.
The issues are mostly medical, very often distressing, and as anonymous as whoever makes the request wants.
About intercessory/petition prayers — Sometimes I’ll clearly ask for “A”. Then nothing happens, or maybe I get “∃∑”.
I figure there’s a reason. Reasons. But I also figure that, even if I got a full explanation, I still wouldn’t understand. God’s God, I’m not, and I’ve read the book of Job.
Demanding explanations? I like understanding things. But sometimes I don’t need to, so I try to avoid fretting when I don’t understand God-level decisions.
Letting ‘I don’t understand’ morph into ‘I don’t care’: sometimes indifference makes sense, like when I don’t understand why folks extol the excellencies of pepperoni pizza. Not that many do.
But when it comes to God — indifference is not an option. Not a viable one.
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Life, the universe and my circumstances permitting. I'm focusing on 'family stories' at the moment. ("A Change of Pace: Family Stories" (11/23/2024))
Blog - David Torkington
Spiritual theologian, author and speaker, specializing in prayer, Christian spirituality and mystical theology [the kind that makes sense-BHG]
I was born in 1951. I'm a husband, father and grandfather. One of the kids graduated from college in December, 2008, and is helping her husband run businesses and raise my granddaughter; another is a cartoonist and artist; #3 daughter is a writer; my son is developing a digital game with #3 and #1 daughters. I'm also a writer and artist.
