Irish-Catholic Women Who Quietly Made A Difference

I come from a long line of strong women.

Women who overcame difficult odds and overwhelming heartache. Women who will never be known to anyone other than those in their immediate family.

The older I get, the more I think about these incredible women. I wonder if I am made of the same stock and marvel at the way they lived their lives. Faced with the difficulties they had faced, how would I have fared?

Every woman I know is able to say the same thing: Strong women are part of their history.

In that way, we all share a common thread.

I remember when the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding came out and the clever promotion that replaced the word “Greek” with “Polish” and “Italian” and any number of different heritages. It is because that thread runs through all of us. We can all relate to some of the same things when we take the time to look into our history.

That’s what Laura Pearl has given us in Erin’s Ring.  Erin’s Ring is the wonderful new book that explores the Irish-Catholic heritage in America—but we don’t have to be Irish to love, enjoy and relate to the story of perseverance and faith.

Pearl’s nod to the strong Irish women who worked in the mills of Dover, New Hampshire is a nod to all women who have overcome the most difficult of circumstances: those in my family and in yours.

The way Pearl has woven the story of these immigrant women into the modern day story of 12 year old Molly and Theresa is quite extraordinary and will speak to the 12 year old in each of us! Erin’sRing is a wonderfully warm, endearing read that will capture the hearts of many and has already captured the hearts of such popular writers as Nancy Carabio Belanger who says of Erin’s Ring, “This wholesome novel had me shed tears of sadness and joy, and these brave young Irish-Catholic women from different generations drew me in. Lovingly and tenderly written, Erin's Ring is a story of true friendship, sacrificial love, and above all, the God Who is never bound by time or space.”

Erin’s Ring is now available and really is the perfect read for the snowy winter days ahead!

Girls Just Want to Have Fun!

A gorgeous jacket caught my eye as I was flipping through an issue of a fashion magazine, trying to find the“perfect” haircut—you know, just cute enough to say I am still “fashionable”yet not too cute as to say “I’m 55 years-old trying to look 30.” The jacket was what I would call “car length.” It was covered in an animal print.

I loved it!

At that point, having lost my focus on trying to find a picture of a perfect haircut to take to my stylist, I intently surveyed the different animal print products—from handbags to pants to shoes—each seeming a bit wild and yet quite appealing. Of course at my age I couldn’t fathom donning a full-on animal print ensemble—or maybe I was never at the correct age to wear such an outfit—but there was still something attractive about an animal print accessory, and most especially that coat!

It just seemed “fun.”

Sometimes, as Christian women, we forget that we are called to have fun. In our day-to-day living in which we embrace our roles as wives and mothers and sisters and care-givers, we forget that there ought to be joy in our journey. Often that joy is a quiet one, maybe it settles upon our spirit during Eucharistic Adoration or it may be found in caring for a sick family member or even in serving food to the homeless; but other times joy is that sheer pleasure of being alive. It is that recognition that God made us uniquely female and that we have an ability to experience our world in a very feminine, fun way.

Time spent with our friends tends to reflect who we are: those who have been created different but equal to men. In the space of a lunch together we can laugh, cry, pray and laugh some more. We have the capacity to contemplate the things of the world while being able to lovingly tend to a scraped knee.

Some of us can bake and sew—this gal has not been given those particular talents—while others may be able to organize school plays or board meetings.

Through it all, with everything that rests upon our shoulders, it is good to remember that we are called to have fun.

When my third son was a youngster I remember that he used to skip everywhere he went. I got such a kick out of watching him skipping to his bike, skipping down the hall to his bedroom and skipping through the grocery aisles. For me, seeing him skip around reflected his innate ability to have fun—his great joy at being alive and very much in the moment.

Ah, youth!

Looking at that animal print jacket in the magazine, I was reminded of my son’s skipping; I was reminded that my journey, too, is meant to be fun. As Christian women we have to be cautious to not get too bogged down in our duties as matriarchs wherein the fun of being alive sort of slowly vanishes.

Fun isn’t just for the young but, as they say, for the young at heart.

None of my friends can understand why I am so anxious for cooler temperatures to arrive. But it will all become clear when they see the fun coat I have to wear!

Cheryl Dickow

www.BezalelBooks.com

Whoopi Goldberg...Big Whoop

I don’t watch The View.

I tried a few times, many moons ago; but found that even with the presence of conservative Elisabeth Hasslebeck, I couldn’t stomach the show.

I’m also a huge fan of Ann Romney. Huge.

But even her guest spot on The View couldn’t entice me to tune in. Appearing the same week as the presidential debates wherein Candy Crowley made it know, once and for all, that the media bias was real and palpable—as if anyone still needed that confirmation—by derailing Romney with an intentional, unacceptable interruption meant to save Obama with a preposterous spin on Benghazi, I just wasn’t up to one second of Whoopi Goldberg.

I’m no psychic but even I could have foretold what was going to happen.

And I believe Ann Romney knew as well; and that is why I continue to admire this woman of courage and conviction.

As I write this little opinion piece, I desperately want to avoid using the phrase “war on women.” However, having read about Goldberg’s incredibly biased questions thrown at Ann Romney (versus the laughable way the cast of The View treated the Obamas who appeared right after our embassy was attacked and 4 Americans were left dead), I’m not sure if it is possible to avoid identifying that the real war on women comes from the likes of women such as Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg.

Add to the list Sandra Fluke (identified as an “American woman’s rights activist”—really?) and Kathleen Seblious yet another wayward Catholic in an Obama administration.

Where is the outrage from these “activists” when the numbers of unemployment for women is made known and we hear that 800,000 more women are in poverty than when Obama took office?

Where is the outrage from these “activists” when we hear that poverty for Hispanic women is growing at a rate faster than any other group?

And the liberal Twitter universe goes ballistic when Romney—who has a proven record of hiring women—talks about the binder in which the resumes of countless women were made available to him so that he could fill his cabinet posts?

Honestly?

I’ve taken away two things from this week’s nauseating bias towards the Romneys:

1. I will throw out my copy Call Me Claus—the Whoopi Goldberg Christmas movie I own.
2. I have updated my resume and want to know how to get it into the binders of anyone looking for a Catholic writer and speaker.

Where Do You Write Your Hurts?

Two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey, they had an argument and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who had been slapped was hurt but without saying anything, wrote in the sand: Today my best friend slapped me in the face.

They kept on walking until they found an oasis where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning. The friend saved her. After she recovered from the near drowning, she wrote on a stone: Today my best friend saved my life.

The friend who had slapped and saved her best friend asked: After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now you write on stone. Why?

The other friend replied: When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness and waters of love can easily wash it away. When someone does something good for us we should engrave it in stone where it can remain for years to come.

From this wonderful tale of two friends we learn how important it is to write our hurts in sand and to carve our benefits in stone.

This is particularly important for women who, by their very nature, tend to be wounded more easily than men. This isn’t to say that men do not get hurt but that the inherent differences between men and women mean that each has a more specific response to experiences than does the other. It is the understanding that what makes women unique also makes women vulnerable. Women are made to be channels of love, selflessly given through acts of charity and as givers of life, which inevitably translates into a vulnerability of sorts.

It is never in a woman’s best interest to close herself up or “protect” herself with walls as this diminishes or even takes away her God-given “womanly” traits: her ability to “know” the things of God and man—what John Paul II called her “feminine genius.”

Rather, a woman serves God and herself best when she learns to experience the fullness of life as God intended and learns to write her sorrow in sand and her joy in stone.

Girls Just Want to Have Fun!

A gorgeous jacket caught my eye as I was flipping through an issue of a fashion magazine, trying to find the “perfect” haircut—you know, just cute enough to say I am still “fashionable” yet not too cute as to say “I’m 54 years-old trying to look 30.” The jacket was what I would call “car length.” It was covered in an animal print.

I loved it!

At that point, having lost my focus on trying to find a picture of a perfect haircut to take to my stylist, I intently surveyed the different animal print products—from handbags to pants to shoes—each seeming a bit wild and yet quite appealing. Of course at my age I couldn’t fathom donning a full-on animal print ensemble—or maybe I was never at the correct age to wear such an outfit—but there was still something attractive about an animal print accessory, and most especially that coat!

It just seemed “fun.”

Sometimes, as Christian women, we forget that we are called to have fun. In our day-to-day living in which we embrace our roles as wives and mothers and sisters and care-givers, we forget that there ought to be joy in our journey. Often that joy is a quiet one, maybe it settles upon our spirit during Eucharistic Adoration or it may be found in caring for a sick family member or even in serving food to the homeless; but other times joy is that sheer pleasure of being alive. It is that recognition that God made us uniquely female and that we have an ability to experience our world in a very feminine, fun way.

Time spent with our friends tends to reflect who we are: those who have been created different but equal to men. In the space of a lunch together we can laugh, cry, pray and laugh some more. We have the capacity to contemplate the things of the world while being able to loving tend to a scraped knee.

Some of us can bake and sew—this gal has not been given those particular talents—while others may be able to organize school plays or board meetings.

Through it all, with everything that rests upon our shoulders, it is good to remember that we are called to have fun.

When my third son was a youngster I remember that he used to skip everywhere he went. I got such a kick out of watching him skipping to his bike, skipping down the hall to his bedroom and skipping through the grocery aisles. For me, seeing him skip around reflected his innate ability to have fun—his great joy at being alive and very much in the moment.

Ah, youth!

Looking at that animal print jacket in the magazine, I was reminded of my son’s skipping; I was reminded that my journey, too, is meant to be fun. As Christian women we have to be cautious to not get too bogged down in our duties at matriarchs wherein the fun of being alive sort of slowly vanishes.

Fun isn’t just for the young but, as they say, for the young at heart.

None of my friends can understand why I am so anxious for cooler temperatures to arrive. But it will all become clear when they see the fun coat I have to wear!