Blogging Around: The "Good for Your Soul" Edition

On feeding our bodies, spirits, and minds

Because the truth is–we humans -need- to be connected to our food supply. Having responsibility for some of our food connects us to the cycles of life, the seasons, and the natural world in a way that I believe is as healthy for our minds and spirits as it is for our bodies. I think it is good for our souls to be involved in the growing and preservation of some of our food–it gets outside, in the sun (which helps our bodies make the all-important vitamin D!) and in the air. It connects us with the world in a visceral way, in a way that feeds us, body and soul.

Remember, I believe that food is not just physical fuel for our bodies–it is feeds our spirits and minds as well. When we learn new skills, we keep our minds supple and alert–our intellects grow stronger with each skill we study and learn. Our bodies grow fit with work to do, real work, and our spirits, when connected with the world, grow and develop peacefully.

Read it all in Farming in the City by Barbara at Tigers & Strawberries.

A way of beholding the world

In our postcultural time, as I see it, we slide toward the inversion of the communion of saints: the collectivity of the self-willed. We are simultaneously indistinct from one another, and disunited. We rejoice in no transcendent good that blesses us all together and blesses each one of us uniquely. But those of us who profess the Catholic Faith still have a way of beholding the world that marks us apart from our neighbors, as surely as if we bore the cruciform ashes on our foreheads every day of the year. We are seldom aware of this way of beholding, and yet it is there, and maybe it is time for us to think about it more keenly. ...

The world sells cruises, a vast swimming pool and spa afloat; we see Francis Xavier on the shore of Japan, fumbling his way to preach the gospel, stuttering out Japanese in a heavy Basque accent. The world sells sex, as cheap as dirt and, finally, not much more interesting, and we see the blessed Mother, appearing in royal womanhood to the peasant Juan Diego.

The world sees the unwanted -- the orphan lying alone at night, the old man alone and losing his mind -- and wishes in pity to ease their pain by ushering them out of our way. We see our saints of loneliness, Charles de Foucauld, Benoit Labre, and that unknown soldier named in our prayers, the Most Abandoned Soul in Purgatory. The world dispenses anodynes for grief, but we take grief in, and make up in ourselves what is lacking, as St. Paul says, in the suffering of Christ. The world sells fun, and we look for joy, what Dante called the "laughter of the universe."

Anthony Esolen hits it out of the park. Via The Paragraph Farmer.

Living a life of joy and adventure

If you're ready to take the world by storm, to live each day to the fullest, and to experience a life of deeper happiness and more excitement than you've ever dreamed of, the best thing you could do would be to stop what you're doing right now and say a sincere prayer to ask God to take control of your life. If you have doubts about God's existence, start by saying a prayer to ask how you can know him. Say this prayer every day until you feel called to pray for something different. You may not "hear" an answer immediately; not because God is slow to respond, but because it takes us time to learn how to listen. But keep at it. Seek, and you shall find.

If you do this, today will truly be the first day of the rest of your life. Surrendering your life to God will not only lead you to that deep happiness that people spend their whole lives searching for, but it will be the beginning of a great adventure. ...

Jen at Conversion Diary has a letter to a graduate that is one we all should read.