Sick kids, birthdays, and identity

Sticky, festive and contemplative

Tears, vomit, and feces

Being a parent of four healthy kids is challenging. Being a parent of four sick kids is even more challenging. Your wife catches whatever the kids have because she’s in the front lines. Ultimately, you catch whatever is going around because you’re sleeping next to the nurse and you’re not not going to kiss her.

It feels like we’ve been sick for an eternity. Maybe not an eternity but at least a month. Collectively we’ve had an ear infection, cold, flu, some stomach bug, and a cough that refuses to leave us. A good friend of ours who is a pediatrician validated my feelings by saying that everybody and their mother has been sick for the last month. I don’t feel as bad.

One of the things that nobody tells you when you’re going to become a parent —or if they do, you probably have pink-colored glasses on and it doesn’t register with you— is that there’ll be a fair share of tears, vomit, and feces that you’ll have to come face to face with. I’m known for uttering phrases like “I caught all the vomit on my shirt!” which means that I only need to clean myself and not the floor. I think that if you haven’t cupped your hands and had your kid puke into them, are you really a dad? I mean, yeah you are but there is an indelible bond that comes out of that kind of love between a father and his child. I love you so much that I will use my hands as a receptacle for your half-digested mac and cheese that didn’t sit well.

Sometimes vomit makes it to the carpet. That’s checkmate. You divide and conquer. One cleans the kid, the other cleans the carpet. You have a boozy drink afterward. You’ve seen things, you come out the other side stronger and maybe less squeamish.

Explosive diarrhea is a whole other animal. If your kid is wearing a diaper, the blast radius can be contained to some extent. Unless it climbs up toward your baby’s lower back ruining that cute onesie that you always put him in. If your kid is potty trained but can’t make it to the bathroom in time then I’d say don’t bother salvaging the PJ Masks undies, it’s not worth it.

Tears are tricky. With tears, much like with distance running, it’s all about your mental toughness. Can you withstand constant crying, moaning, and complaining? For how long? Are you resilient enough to not get sensory overload? Can you prioritize helping the kid that needs the most help at the right time? The algorithm has to be fine-tuned on the fly. I hope we regain our health soon.

Four decades

Diana and I logged our first date night of the year last weekend. We went to our friend Zack’s birthday rager. He went all out for his 40th birthday celebration. The first thing that caught my attention was the porta-potty on the driveway. There were a lot of people. Don Taco’s mobile taco stand had scrumptious tacos, rice, and beans as usual. There was a photo booth, a fire pit, and most importantly an open bar.

The open bar had an ice sculpture with a carved-out 40 sticking at the top. Right under the 40 was a canal on a decline. Its purpose was to transport alcohol from the highest point to the lower one where the recipient’s mouth would be placed in order to ingest said chilled alcohol moved with the help of gravity. It was explained to me that this is called an ice luge shot. It didn’t take a lot of peer pressure for me to ingest alcohol this way.

We had a blast. Diana has known Zack since the very early 2000s and I met him in 2012 when I moved to Phoenix and started helping with the youth group he was running. It was fun to see people from those days again. I saw teens from that youth group, all grown up now, some of them married or engaged. Life changes significantly in a decade.

Five individuals from that young adult group from a decade ago formed families. Collectively we have sixteen children. That baffles me. The only thing more surprising than that is the fact that we all got sitters for that night.

Three women or one?

This is the title of the first chapter of the book I’m currently reading, Saint Mary Magdalene: Prophetess of Eucharistic Love by Fr. Sean Davidson, and it covers the controversy of Mary Magdalene’s identity. Apparently, up to the 20th century, the Church believed that the repentant sinner, the sister of Martha, and Mary Magdalene are all the same woman through scripture; but some disagree.

Fr. Davidson gets help from French exegete Fr. André Feuillet, St. Gregory, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas to make the case for what most probably is the same woman —based on the interpretation and analysis of sacred scripture. Here’s a summary.

There are two anointings recorded in the gospel. The first one takes place in Luke 7:36-50, in the early days of Christ’s public ministry in Galilee. The second one takes place a few days before Christ’s death in the village of Bethany, a couple of miles from Jerusalem (Jn 12:1-8; Mt 26:6-13; Mk 14:3-9). In the first anointing, there is a reference to tears which is absent in the second one. They happen at different times and places. And in the second one, there’s a reference to the poor and the burial of the Lord. We could say that this is the same woman at two different stages in her relationship with Jesus.

This could be reinforced by reading chapter 11 of the Gospel of John: “It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill” (11:2). The evangelist makes this distinction right before he describes the second anointing in chapter 12.

Now if Mary is the sister of Martha and Lazarus, who lived in Bethany, why is she referred to as Mary of Magdala? Ancient Provençal tradition has always held that Mary Magdalene was from a wealthy family who lived in Bethany but at some point in her life, she went to live in the town of Magdala. This town, situated on the shores of the Sea of Galilee was populated by a high number of pagans. Mary was led away and became known by the Jews as a public sinner. That is until she encountered Christ. Then at a much later date, we see her back in Bethany, reunited with her family once again.

Mary of Bethany is praised for anointing the body of Christ beforehand for burying (Mk. 14:8). Then at the time of the Passion and Resurrection, we read of Mary Magdalene at the foot of the cross next to Mary the Mother of God; Mary, the wife of Cleopas and the mother of James the Lesser. If Mary Magdalene is not Mary of Bethany why is she so close to the Theotokos? Or why does she gets the honor of being the first person to see our resurrected Lord?

For the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, the Church gives us the Gospel taken from John 20 in which Mary is weeping and seeking her beloved Jesus everywhere. The first reading is a prefiguration of this text from the third chapter of the Song of Songs which speaks of a woman desperately longing to see her Beloved.

Nard is only mentioned twice in Scripture, first, in the Song of Songs 1:12 “While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance” and second, when Mary of Bethany fills the house with its fragrance, as the king is at table, reclined on his couch.

Two prefigurations, one related to Mary Magdalene, the other to Mary of Bethany. As a nameless French preacher mentioned in the book calls St. Mary Magdalene “the woman cut in pieces” I personally think this is a mind-blowing puzzle.

In the end, Fr. Davidson adds that the conclusion that these three women are just one is the most probable one. However, nobody is obliged to accept or reject this vision of St. Mary Magdalene; the Church leaves us free to follow our hearts and decide accordingly.