You can see she's a beautiful girl,

She's a beautiful girl
Everything around her is a silver pool of light
People who surround her feel the benefit of it
It makes you calm
She holds you captivated in her palm

Johannah, dressed up for Homecoming. Senior Year. Isn't she beautiful? And her own person too.

When Peach Cobbler is on the Line

I've had so many blog entries for this blog percolating in my head and no time to write them! I'm staring down the barrel of a huge midterm due tomorrow (8-9 pages on Rawls and justice as fairness) as well as a ridiculous number of papers to grade for the composition class I teach. My daughter is in that vortex of senior year of high school combined with applying to colleges and that seems to take inordinate amounts of my time.

So here are a few random observations on the fly:

Cincinnati is a much nicer place to live when the Bengals win. Did you see that looooong fourth and 1 pass to Chad Johnson? Gutty play. Go Palmer! Go Bengals!

It's miserable to watch UCLA lose to Notre Dame. Period. (My dad, conversely, was delirious. His California vanity plates say: ND Freak. Understandably.)

I've been so busy, I just realized I haven't had a real meal in three days.

I've finally figured out what strain of faith I'm most attracted to: Academic Catholics! They rock my world. Can I just get baptized in the library and chew up some of their journal articles for communion?

And last but not least, I finally skunked my dear husband in a battle of numbers. He is always right. Always. I suck at anything numbers related and usually make grandiose, overstatements or totally inaccurate estimates to support my arguments (who me?) which he then rightly tempers with a return to reality.... things like,

Me: China spent like two trillion on beer production last year, honest. Our professor said...

Him: Uh, Julie, I'm thinking China didn't even spend two trillion on their military last year....

He's always oh-so-gentle, but I've taken to doubting any numbers I quote since I am always wrong.

But not this time, homies!

We had a face-off: who has sold more records, has earned more money, is a bigger superstar: Sheryl Crow or Madonna? I took Madonna, he wagered on Lance's ex. At stake: homemade dessert by the loser for the winner.

No contest. Madonna is queen.

What made me laugh so much, though, is that I doubted.... for a split second. Jon's sense of numbers is just that much better than mine. Then I remembered one critical number fact that restored my faith. Jon and I missed fifteen years of popular music out of devotion to all things Vineyard music (which has never come close to equaling either Madonna or Sheryl Crow's monetary take, btw). The last time we knew the title of a Madonna song was while we were dating: "Borderline" is our song. She had ten big years there where we were literally out of the country or totally out of touch.

So wouldn't you know, we resurfaced in the world of pop culture about the time Sheryl Crow was hitting it big. No wonder he didn't think Madonna had had many hits. Can't blame Jon for picking Sheryl. But I confess I'm sure happy to win his peach cobbler.

It. Is. To. Die. For.

I'm now thinking about other statistical wagers, like who has more money: Sting or Bono?

Maybe put an apple turnover on the line?

P.S. New column link in post below.

Not so black and white

This week's column is up. It's the beginning of a short series on Black Theology. I've been wanting to do this for some time and now seems as good as any.

Enjoy.

Column will be up on Monday

So there you have it! I'm now a Monday writer which is a huge relief to me. Gives me the weekend to write.

In other news: Notre Dame does accept homeschoolers as applicants. Thrilled about that. Johannah is throwing out an app in their direction as well as OSU, UK, Kent and Xavier. OSU is crazy hard to get into all of the sudden because they are taking fewer freshmen than ever yet have more applicants than ever.

You wouldn't believe the essay questions.

These two come from Notre Dame:

1. Students at the University of Notre Dame are passionate! Their passion gives direction and definition to campus academic, community, and spiritual life. Recognizing that you have already provided us with a list of your extracurricular activities, please briefly describe your greatest passion and tell us how it defines and directs you.

2. St. Therese of Lisieux wrote in Story of a Soul, "The sun shines equally both on cedars and on every tiny flower." She reminds us that beauty can be found in the great and the small, in the extraordinary and the mundane. Show us the magnificence of the simple in your life.

The OSU questions are even more difficult. Paraphrasing:

1. Should Americans be required to vote like Australians? If so, what punishment ought to follow not voting: loss of driver's license, fines?

2. Given that more women than men are in college today, what do you think ought to be done about the decline in male students?

3. When an artist creates, should his aim be to create beauty or to provoke thought? Explain.

One of the UK questions asks if the student has any experience with diversity and to describe it.

Not exactly easy questions and most require two to be answered. Multiply that out and you end up writing ten essays! Very dicey while continuing to do schoolwork, act in a play (two in Johannah's case) and keep up with a job (we told her to quit today).

I have to admit... it wasn't that challenging to get into college when I applied. I admire these kids. Lots of pressure.

Changed my UPI column day

My grad school class is Tuesday/Thursday and I'm just drowning trying to write for the column and class every week. I've changed my day to send my column to Fridays and I will probably be published on Monday or Tuesday. I'll let you know.

In the meantime, I hope to write a bit more on this blog. I have lots of mundane things I could write about like college applications for Johannah, lacrosse and zoology for Liam, season-finishing soccer games for Caitrin and Jake's adjustment to part time enrollment in high school.

Noah, btw, got great feedback on his essay (the professor loved his writing style - yippee!).

But why write about my family? Most of you don't know them and it's like having to read the Christmas letter from hell when it shows up on a blog. (I wrote an un-Christmas letter here in 2004.)

Fall just rolls by too quickly for me. I love the look of the trees right now - aflame in red, orange, yellow, brown and lingering faded green. The whole world is sadly winding down to winter.

And I thought I should point out that Notre Dame plays UCLA at home for the first time since 1964... My father and brother are going to that game (they forgot me), but I'll be rooting for UCLA just to spite them both. :) Go Bruins (who don't stand a chance, but remember, the Bruins gave us Troy Aikman and QB coach for the Ravens: Rick Neuheisel).

Bengals... we'll just wait and see. Crossing fingers.

Okay, clearly all I have time for these days is inane comments about sports. Perhaps this is a sign that I need to finish grad school asap. The brain cells are expiring at too rapid a rate.

Not a sports blog

(as Dave would say) but I can't help but mourn the loss by the Cardinals last night at MNF. How deflating! They had the Bears beat and lost the game. Tragic.

Matt Leinart is every bit as good as we knew he would be despite the over-worked scrutiny of the NFL before the draft. Last night he looked poised, pumped, in total control. Gotta love his enthusiasm. He looked like a man-boy having a great time. That team is loaded with talent and if they can pick themselves up after this devastating defeat and recognize how close they are coming to big wins, I think the Cards can become a terrific team. Will Denny Green lose his job over this? I wonder.

Can Matt carry the team on his shoulders? Sure hope so. He hates to lose so that helps. Someone has to hate it.

I can't stand it when teams that deserve to lose, win, just because the other team collapses.

Oh the agony of sports!

Homeschool to cyber-cell-phone school

So my poor new freshman son is working like a fiend (26 hours to pay for food and rent and the more important Road Runner connection for his computer) and suddenly has his Very First Essay due.

Now Jon teaches at UC and knows what they want in these essays. Noah doesn't want help... until like the eleventh hour. At that point, Jon can't give it- he's teaching and sleeping! So the task falls to me. After his late shift at work, he comes to our house and we sit together until the wee hours piecing together the opening paragraph from his draft. Bleary eyed, I send him to bed in our house where he sleeps the full seven hours. We rise early and do a bit more work and he heads out the door to make his first class.

After class, he calls me from the library. We work some more. Alas, he must leave for work again (another eight hour shift into the night). That night he calls me at midnight. We chat on the phone while he emails the drafts. I read and make comments on the phone while he types them in. He adds material and reads it to me. We both have copies of the book that he's writing about open in front of us. Exhausted but happy with where it's going, we collapse into our respective beds.

Morning dawns and the phone rings. Literally dawns. I roust myself out of bed and read his draft emailed to me. Looking good, but not finished.

So now he's got to finish the paper and get dressed and hoof it to class while grabbing food on the way. Panic sets in. He has to get to the library to print it too. Disaster seems inevitable. And then....

That's when I remember we are in the 21st century! No more electric typewriters! No more phones glued to a wall (how inconvenient). Time for mobile essay writing! I can see the TV ads now. So I say:

Noah, put on your clothes and start walking. You dictate, I type and then I'll send the finished draft to your email.

So he walks out the door, cars and deisel buses whizzing by. First he can't hear me, then I can't hear him, but all the while the final paragraphs of the paper are pouring out of him as he waits at the "Don't walk" sign, as he thrusts his freezing hands into his deep pockets, as he waves to girls who know him (they all love him). He gets to Starbucks as I'm typing the last line.

We laugh. Can we really have just written an essay over the phone on the way to class? I hit the send button and the now completed essay zings to his yahoo account in milliseconds. Noah gets his java and heads to the library where all he has to do is hit the print button.

Makes it to class with two seconds to spare.

Wow! Do I love cell phones and the Internet?

Now some people might think this is an absurd amount of help to give a college kid. But not me. This is a kid who is working 26 hours a week to pay for his life while going to school fulltime... someone who didn't go to school for the last two and a half years. And he's doing it... he's hanging in there, wants to succeed, wants to make it work, is making it work.

I just felt glad that I could help at all. It's a pleasure to watch his mind grow and unfold. A continuation of all those years together. Awesome.

Thank you God, aka Internet.

The nightside of history

This week's column initiates a look at the night side of our history (though as is usual of me, I can't help but do it through my personal, superficial southern Californian background). I hope to explore in future columns some of the stuff I'm learning in my justice class and from my postmodern theologies and felt like setting it up!

I hope to blog more but wow am I busy! Will say that homeschool is going swimmingly this year and I had a sweet time helping Noah with a college essay last night. Who says home education ends when they leave for college? :)

Three Cheers for a Higher Power

My mother visited us from California for the last week. She had a speaking engagement in another town in Ohio. For those who are new readers, my mom is one of those shocking grandmas. She's written a total of 55 books, speaks all over the country and hikes up mountains for "vacations." You can check out her website here: Karen O'Connor.com.

She's got a new book out that has a beautiful cover: The Beauty of Aging

Anyway, we went to a country club community event where she was the keynote speaker. In advance she had been told not to be overt about her Christian faith in such a way that it might offend those who are not Christians. The event was sponsored by a community family news magazine, not a church. My mom is artful in her ability to affirm those who are making the journey toward God and is inclusive in how she expresses her beliefs. The talk was delightful and practical. She talked a bit about offering gratitude at the end of each day and that prayer can function as the means to offer that gratitude - to God, to your source or Higher Power.

She sold lots of books and got great feedback at the book table.

However, what neither of us counted on: this is Ohio. Church and Christianity are givens.

The feedback on the evaluation forms was overall very affirming - women love when my mom speaks. But two of the women were dismayed by the lack of overt Christian message. They went so far as to say that my mother undermined the Christian message by including a Higher Power in her talk and that Jesus is the only way to God. One of them said it made it nearly impossible to witness when my mom as the speaker didn't take a strong stand for Christian faith. The organizer of the event then expressed some disappointment that my mom didn't make her faith more overt (how confusing is that!?).

The event organizer assumed that since my mother attended a 4Square church that she would be too charismatic in her enthusiasm for her faith so the moderator had wanted to "tone her down." How ironic that when my mom took her advice seriously, she got criticized for it.

I find the whole thing absurd. Imagine being one of those women: you go to a talk over breakfast and the whole time you're listening, you're evaluating whether or not you agree with the speaker (thereby missing the import of the talk, I might add, which was about making the most of each moment in our lives based on my mom's book Squeeze the Moment).

Instead, these couple of women were busy "squeezing the speaker" in their minds, utterly missing the moment.

I have to admit... I remember living that way. It was a good reminder to me to realize that I need to give as much space and graciousness as I hope will be extended to me.

Truth: the First Victim in Politics

Here's my UPI column, a day late.

I've been thinking a lot about what it means to detatch from ideology. Not as easy as one would like it to be.

Sorry this blog has been so quiet. I've got my mother here, I was out of town earlier in the week on business and my five kids suddenly are clamoring for rides to all parts of Cincinnati. I miss keeping up with all of you and hope to catch up on your blogs this week.

A couple quickies: Congrats to my friend at Musings for her new blog that is featuring blog contests!

As I type, the Tigers are ahead 6-0 over the Yanks in the eighth with one win a piece so clearly we should be happy for Dave!

And finally, a big congratulations to my editor, Larry, who revamped our Religions and Spirituality site at UPI. Looks beautiful! (Now it tracks the most read columns in the center aisle too!) You can see what your favorite columnists look like by clicking on columnists.

Hope to see you all soon in cyberspace.