bits and bants vol. 9
travel and Jesus in hats
Happy Easter! I hope you all had a blessed Holy Week and Triduum, and are now partying like it’s 50 days of Easter!
I love art portraying Christ as the gardener with Mary Magdalen, and I especially like when the art gives Jesus a jaunty hat!
bants:
I’ve been away from the internet due to the miraculous happening of a family vacation during spring break. We went to Arizona: Paul and I having been a handful of times together and always loved it, and so we wanted to take the kids one winter to show them sunshine and the Grand Canyon.
Grand Canyon National Park was very grand and amazing even though we had not the best of weather. It snowed the second day we were there and basically didn’t get above freezing. Good thing we’re Canadian and we’re
used to it! We still saw everything, even though my dream of the perfect instagram sunset did not come true.
It was the first big trip the kids have been on since the plague, so they were excited and really good travellers. One of the kids is having major surgery (hopefully) this summer which will include months of recovery so we purposefully planned a spring vacation to make sure no one felt like they were missing out on fun stuff. Travelling with five kids remains eye-wateringly expensive—one of the perks of being Canadian is never being able to fly anywhere cheaply. But travelling always remains worth it, I think. I think it would only get easier if we did it more, but you know, the eye-watering expense and all that!
We got home during Holy Week and I didn’t prepare too well for Easter, but with my kids being older I feel so much less pressure to make all holidays perfect and memorable. I distinctly remember judging moms who came to this epiphany and thought they were lazy and basically abdicating their motherly duties back when I had no children. I used to be so dumb, guys.
We were only gone a week but I am still not caught up on all the things, and all the things have me snowed under already! But you know, after this busy week I’m sure I’ll catch up…
bits:
My daunting “can you believe this is the messed up world we live in?” article of the week is this pretty intense piece detailing the current culture for women in Korea right now. Sobering and so sad. It just makes me want to yell into the ether, “Men are good! Women are good! We can be good together! Read Theology of the Body, you poor, messed up people!” But you know, not many would listen.
I cannot handle that this is Willa Cather’s birthplace and we’re just letting it rot away! “History! It’s important, people!” she yelled into the ether.
Continuing on the apocalyptic landscape for women in a Theology of the Body ignoring world, this piece on surrogacy. Our world is so good at ignoring reality, but ignoring the reality of a world where surrogacy is normal is going to get so weird. Weirder than it is now, which feels impossible.
I am a Hannah Coulter nerd currently reading Perelandra, so this lovely piece has me thinking about both books in new ways. I’m not entirely sure I agree, but I need to think more on it.
reading, watching, what have you:
Caught up on what I read on instagram this week if you care to watch an hour of me talking about books. I’m also listening to the Joy Ellis’ Jackman and Evans series which makes good audiobooks because Richard Armitage narrates, and the books and compelling mysteries that keep you wanting to listen!
I got into Beef this week on Netflix. So far it’s a very well done show that I think Ali Wong and Steven Yeun are fantastic in. It’s coarse, has tons of language, etc, but it does have a pretty probing and thoughtful look at real human longing in today’s world. It also treats faith as a real human emotional experience which is always unique on tv today.
I’m going to breakdown and pay for HBO again because I can’t stand being out of the Succession loop!
I’m fairly sure there was more I was going to write about this week but I’m out of time and have to get out the door. I’m currently planning a bedroom makeover and am very tempted to just go on a spending spree because I’m reacting to yet again being crushed in trying to buy a house I actually like. It’s fine, just been trying to buy a house in Canada for ten years, will probably be like this for another ten.
with chocolate and champagne,
Christy
As I read the Korea article, I was struck by how thoroughly everyone is missing the point!! Number one, why is there zero mention of the industries that are benefitting from the Korean obsession with appearance? Number two, the women do not see that the solution to their very broken society is not to become men, and adopt much of their selfish behaviour. Can you imagine the difference these women could make if they adopted a religious order’s way of doing things? There is no mention of positive values or virtue, just a raging against the, yes obviously bad, societal problems. It’s like a “being selfish” competition.
Buy a house you don’t really like and redo THAT Bedroom in your spending spree, no???
#sosimple