bits and bants vol.16
disappointment, preserving historic churches, disappointment
I spent this week dealing with disappointment which is never fun, but probably even less fun when it’s a repeated kind of disappointment (which it was), and on top of what feels like a good year full of different kinds of disappointments. Not tragedies or anything, just regular life kind of disappointments. Everyone’s got them.
I don’t think I deal well with disappointment, what with my propensity to hate things out of my control and all. But disappointments that come from things that are out of our control are a very sharp reminder of how little control we do have in the grand scheme of things. Unfortunately it takes some digging through a bunch of emotional junk to get to that humbling reminder.
There is no amount of “hustling” that could have changed my disappointment. It wasn’t for lack of trying or “pursuing my passion” that disappointment came my way. And then the prosperity gospel mentality that so easily seeps into our expectations doesn’t help. Did I not pray enough?(messed up theological idea) Why are my prayers not heard but the thousands on social media are? (big flashing lights of WRONG!) And then a bit of guilt that my disappointment is but a drop in the sea of suffering.
This week I also happened to be reading Caryll Houselander: The Divine Eccentric by Maisie Ward and in it is one of the classic clever Caryll quips: we should want a child-like faith, not a child-ish faith. Which is a very good distinction. My reactions and emotions when it comes to disappointment feel extremely childish. I feel like a dramatic thirteen year old girl who realizes her crush doesn’t even know her name. I want to despair and flail. Pout and sulk. And in a childish way harden my heart because disappointment sucks.
My disappointment was a pretty good sized one. So I’m not going to say I’m in a place of acceptance yet, more like still grieving, pouting, and feeling generally terrible. But I do want to be self aware enough to not become completely bitter about it. It takes a lot of intention and work to not let our hearts become hard when crappy stuff happens. I think I can safely say that without grace I would already have a very hardened heart and I’ve had a pretty good life by objective standards.
It’s a good reminder that grace is also out of our control, and thank God for that!
Now I’m off to pout and be sad a little more before the weekend.
bits:
you could really tell it was August with the state of nothing new on the internet these days, can’t you?
I was so honoured the lovely
asked me to be on her very delightful podcast, (also a very good substack!) this week. We chatted about lots of fun things like the internet, motherhood, and the monarchy. I hope I wasn’t boring.I found this article on saving historic churches in Wales so interesting because I think every church should be saved and preserved (or at least all those made pre-1960!) and we actually are faced with a lot of problems in our area when it comes to saving historic churches. Of course, our historic churches are barely 100 years old but it is still a very expensive problem for our almost broke parishes to deal with.
If you want to be gobsmacked with holiness, bravery, and the terrible evil of the Nazis, this article on a family about to be beatified then read about the Ulma family. A novena dedicated to them beings today.
reading, watching, what have you:
I just finished Tom Lake by Ann Patchett and I’ve got lots of thoughts! I love Ann Patchett’s writing. I enjoyed reading Tom Lake. But this was not a great book. I feel like the ending completely torpedoed the book and plot as a whole, but even without the wielding of a plot hammer, the characters just weren’t very complex and the whole thing felt shallow. Enjoyable, but shallow. Enjoyable aside from Ann’s not very subtle insertion of her own political opinions. Yes, it’s one of those very predictable contemporary novels that have to cover their bases of “approved opinions”.
Finally finished watching The Bear. (We’ve been travelling, people have been sick, we’ve had people staying—all wonderful reasons our usual tv time was cut in half this month!) The show is just so good, and honestly one of the most anxiety producing shows that does not involve running away from an axe murderer. I’m most surprised at how much I love Ritchie, and how annoying Carmy can be. Hit me in the comments with your thoughts!
I also revived my neglected sourdough starter that has been sitting ignored and forlorn in my fridge for over six months in less than two days. I’m immeasurably proud, and just needed to put that here for the record.
You’re very welcome for not even mentioning “back to school” in this newsletter. Let us just have one moment of peace, ok??
My flowers are still alive and kicking, and if we make it past Tuesday morning we will have another week of avoiding killing frost—so fingers crossed for Tuesday!
with august by Taylor constantly living in my head,
Christy
Wow, the story on the Ulma family is incredible. I can't even imagine.
Your note on sourdough is inspiring! I recently became obsessed with a youtuber who focuses on homemaking (the channel is Sarah Therese Co, if you're interested in watching videos of a young mom cleaning her kitchen) and she talks about sourdough a lot, so it's been on my mind. I need to get into sourdough! The last time I tried, my starter seemed like it was continually getting black/gray liquid on the top (even when it was in the fridge and I was feeding it) and I just couldn't keep track of it. But now I'm feeling inspired to try again.