Did You Cry?

The most frequently asked question about getting Hannah settled in at A&M.

The answer is ... not really though I do have a tendency to get a bit teary eyed at the oddest times. Now, whether that makes me a good mother or a bad mother I am not sure. I don't feel like boo-hooing but there is a nostalgic, melancholy feel to everything as we all adjust to having that big gap where Hannah has always been until now.

We had a good and easy trip (both ways), finally figured out how to get Hannah into her dorm room (4th floor, NO ELEVATOR y'all! Thank heavens for sturdy, polite young co-ed men who will haul boxes!), and the only crying on-site was when I glanced over my shoulder as we were leaving and could see on Hannah's face that she was trying not to break down. Which I did quite well at (the NOT breaking down part) until I was driving away and then I did sniffle a bit.

Hannah's roommate is just about the nicest girl you could ask for (she was the one who was waiting with box-carrying guys ... a good roommate obviously!). Hannah got together with some of her high school friends and they were hanging out together last night when I called.

So far the worst sufferers are the animals. Pepper (our Great Dane/black Lab mix) kept rushing to the front window and barking wildly at any cars that slowed down. I think he felt Hannah might be getting dropped off by a friend.

The cat may never be the same having to depend on the rest of us lowly mortals for enough affection to get through the day! She was not in her usual spot this morning and then appeared looking all rumpled as if she'd woken late and bolted out of her spot without a morning toilette. She then swarmed onto my lap and purred loudly (not the usual routine I assure you).

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, to A&M We Go!

Yep, today's the big day when we load the station wagon and head to College Station.

in my absence, here are a few things I found interesting.

Crusin' for a Bruisin' ... poor Tom Cruise, how will he provide for his family now that Paramount has given him the boot for his bizarre behavior?

Crunchy Con ... I read enough reviews of this book to feel that it was way too defined for me. I figured reading all those definitions would just send my blood pressure soaring. Then Steven Riddle began praising it. That's a sign of how much I trust his judgement ... I began to reconsider my position. Not to worry though! Deeper into it he has run into the same sorts of thoughts that I had when reading the reviews ... here and here. Whew!

Autumn Reading Challenge ... oh Mama T, how you influence me! First she numbered the books she read. What an interesting idea. Me too! Then she also gave brief summaries of them. Another good idea ... though I am less thorough about that than she but ... me too! Now she tells about how her Summer Reading Challenge went. Another good idea to assign oneself some of those books that have been taking up shelf space for a long time but not getting read for whatever reason. She's getting ready for her Autumn Challenge and that's another idea I am turning over in my mind. I like it. I like it a lot. For one thing it means making a list. And I am all about lists.

New Way to Harvest Embryonic Stem Cells ... American Papist has the story as well as lotsa links. I am reserving judgment. It looks like a good deal ... but lets see what everyone says and give it some time.

The Rules Aren't Changing, They're Being Applied ... canon lawyer Ed Peters has an interesting post about this.

The Dictatorship of Artificial Contraception ... Nate reminds us where the fundamental base of the culture of death begins.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

The Catholic Home: Better Than Ever

THE CATHOLIC HOME
by Meredith Gould

For many of today's Catholics, the ethnic customs that celebrate the birth, life, death, and resurrection of the Christ have been lost, forgotten, or abandoned for the sake of assimilation. And while folk traditions are neither a substitute for faith nor compelling evidence for reverence, they do help to stimulate and sustain awareness. We have to start somewhere.

I believe that celebrating Catholic customs in the domestic church can serve to reenliven Catholic identity in ways that Mass attendance simply cannot, although I, for one, miss Mass when I miss Mass...

I did a brief review of this book previously at Spero News along with a few others which I find helpful in celebrating liturgical holidays through the year. Now I see that the paperback edition has come out and in looking through it I am reminded of just what a treasure it is to any family that wants to have daily devotion as part of their lives.

Even if you are well versed in reinforcement of Catholic liturgy through home traditions Gould's book serves as a good reminder of following the liturgical calendar through the year. I really appreciated having everything supported by a quote from the Catechism and the author's Jewish heritage adds nice depth to showing the customs as completion of Jewish tradition. Certainly I appreciate her breaking ordinary time into two sections so that the book's order of contents follows the year.

Gould also has a nice touch on regular daily devotions such as reminding us that simply dressing up and dashing out the door to be on time for weekly Mass just isn't enough. How about looking through the Sunday readings first so we have a bit of a frame of reference for what we will be hearing? She offers good, solid advice about such things as daily family prayer, regular Scripture reading, and much more. These things are the reason I give this book as a wedding gift to Catholic couples more than any other.

The publishers took the opportunity to revise the book while they were coming out with the paperback edition. I didn't even notice until flipping through and comparing the two just how often the liturgical colors had been gotten wrong in the first edition. The author mentions this in the forward and I feel for her humiliation.

They also took the opportunity to add an appendix with all the names of Mary ... an amazing list and I had no idea that such a thing would fill so many pages! It would provide ample material for meditation just considering those titles and how Mary, as the first Christian, is worthy of our imitation.

The layout also has been tidied up some. Not that the previous layout was bad at all, but comparing pages you can see how they fixed awkward page breaks. That is probably something only someone who has worked in graphic arts for so long would notice in the first place but it will make the book flow more smoothly in reading.

The liturgical colors information was the most necessary revision but the other changes just make the book easier to use and a more valuable resource than ever. Highly recommended.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Tonypandy

Continuing yesterday's exploration of Tonypandy.

Presently Grant put his hand out, wordlessly, and Carradine gave him a cigarette and lighted it for him.

They smoked in silence.

It was Grant who interrupted the sparrows' performance.

"Tonypandy," he said.

"How's that?"

But Grant was still far away.

"After all, I've seen the thing at work in my own day, haven't I?" He said, not to Carradine but to the ceiling, "It's Tonypandy."

"And what in the heck is Tonypandy?" Brent asked. "It sounds like patent medicine. Does your child get out of sorts? Does the little face get flushed, the temper short, and the limbs easily tired? Give the little one Tonypandy, and see the radiant results." And then, as Grant made no answer: "All right, then; keep your Tonypandy. I wouldn't have it as a gift."

"Tonypandy," Grant said, still in that sleep-walking voice, "is a place in the South of Wales."

"I knew it was some kind of physic."

"If you go to South Wales you will hear that, in 1910, the Government used troops to shoot down Welsh miners who were striking for their rights. You'll probably hear that Winston Churchill, who was Home Secretary at the time, was responsible. South Wales, you will be told, will never forget Tonypandy!"

Carradine had dropped his flippant air.

"And it wasn't a bit like that?

"The actual facts are these. The rougher section of the Rhondda valley crowd had got quite out of hand. Shops were being looted and property destroyed. The Chief Constable of Glamorgen sent a request to the Home Office for troops to protect the lieges. If a Chief constable thinks a situation serious enough to ask for the help of the military a Home Secretary has very little choice in the matter. But Churchill was so horrified at the possibility of the troops coming face to face with a crowd of rioters and having to fire on them, that he stopped the movement of the troops and sent instead a body of plain, solid Metropolitan Police, armed with nothing but their rolled-up mackintoshes. The troops were kept in reserve, and all contact with the rioters was made by unarmed London police. The only bloodshed in the whole affair was a bloody nose or two. The Home Secretary was severely criticised in the house of Commons incidentally for his 'unprecedented intervention.' That was Tonypandy. That is the shooting down by troops that Wales will never forget."

"Yes," Carradine said, considering. "Yes. It's almost a parallel to the Boston affair. Someone blowing up a simple affair to huge proportions for a political end."

"The point is not that it is a parallel. The point is that every single man who was there knows that the story is nonsense, and yet it has never been contradicted. It will never be overtaken now. It is a completely untrue story grown to legend while the men who knew it to be untrue looked on and said nothing."

"Yes. That's very interesting; very. History as it is made."

"Yes. History."

"Give me research. After all, the truth of anything at all doesn't lie in someone's account of it. It lies in all the small facts of the time. An advertisement in a paper. The sale of a house. The price of a ring."

The Daughter of Time

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Happy Birthday Hannah!

Source

If I had my way (as well as unlimited time) Hannah's cake would look like this. However, that's not gonna happen. She selected this classic combination of Southern Ginger Cake with Buttercream Frosting. Mmmm ... We'll go out for seafood first. We'll be taking her to college on Thursday but I'm glad she opted to stay home for a few extra days so we could celebrate her birthday first.

(This post will be left at the top of the blog all day so scroll down for any new posts.)

The Thunderer

If you read this out loud you will get the most benefit from it.

God’s angry man, His crotchety scholar
Was Saint Jerome,
The great name-caller
Who cared not a dime
For the laws of Libel
And in his spare time
Translated the Bible.
Quick to disparage
All joys but learning
Jerome thought marriage
Better than burning;
But didn’t like woman’s
Painted cheeks;
Didn’t like Romans,
Didn’t like Greeks,
Hated Pagans
For their Pagan ways,
Yet doted on Cicero all of his days.

A born reformer, cross and gifted,
He scolded mankind
Sterner than Swift did;
Worked to save
The world from the heathen;
Fled to a cave
For peace to breathe in,
Promptly wherewith
For miles around
He filled the air with
Fury and sound.
In a mighty prose
For Almighty ends,
He thrust at his foes,
Quarreled with his friends,
And served his Master,
Though with complaint.
He wasn’t a plaster sort of a saint.

But he swelled men’s minds
With a Christian leaven.
It takes all kinds
To make a heaven.

From "Times Three" by Phyllis McGinley

CONGRATULATIONS TO LAURA H.

It is with a joyful and humble heart that I announce to you this day, on the memorial of the Queenship of Mary, the decision to pursue a vocation to the religious life as a sister - currently with the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal. Today marks four months of active discernment following an almost indescribable experience in which I 'just knew' God was calling me to Himself in this most intimate way.

She has more about her discernment to this point. Go congratulate her and keep her in your prayers. Woohoo!

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

40 Million School Books Can't Be Wrong

One of the pleasures of revisiting favorite books from long ago is the changed perspective that one brings from the passage of years. I read and reread my favorites of Josephine Tey's mysteries when I was in high school ... Daughter of Time, The Franchise Affair, and Brat Farrar.

Rereading them all recently I discovered that not only were did they hold up splendidly as mysteries and portraits of a certain time in England, but that Tey used each to put forward specific commentary about issues in which she evidently took great interest.

Brat Farrar, a wonderful tale of a stranger carefully coached to enter a family as the heir who supposedly committed suicide many years ago, is also a love letter to English country living and horses.

The Franchise Affair, which I will post excerpts of later, is a tribute to the solid goodness of the English character as well as an exposure of the problem of media abuse. (More of that later.)

The Daugher of Time, my personal favorite of the three, was written in 1951 and considers the problem of history being rewritten to reflect the prejudices of those who come into power later. Tey tells the story through Inspector Grant who is laid up in the hospital with a broken leg and who becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard III that bears no resemblance to the jealousy-ridden multiple murderer of Shakespeare's play. With the help of an American scholar, he applies his detective's mind to discovering the truth about what kind of man Richard III truly was and who actually killed the little princes in the Tower.

She introduces the idea of "Tonypandy" which deserves to be better known and which is the topic of this excerpt.

"Forty million school books can't be wrong," Grant said after a little.

"Can't they?"

"Well, can they!"

"I used to think so, but I'm not so sure nowadays."

"Aren't you being a little sudden in your scepticism?"

"Oh, it wasn't this that shook me."

"What then?"

"A little affair called the Boston Massacre. Ever heard of it?"

"Of course."

"Well, I discovered quite by accident, when I was looking up something at college, that the Boston Massacre consisted of a mob throwing stones at a sentry. The total casualties were four. I was brought up on the Boston Massacre, Mr. Grant. My twenty-eight inch chest used to swell at the very memory of it. My good red spinach-laden blood used to seethe at the thought of helpless civilians mowed down by the fire of British troops. You can't imagine what a shock it was to find that all it added up to in actual fact was a brawl that wouldn't get more than local reporting in a clash between police in strikers in any American lock-out."

As Grant made no reply to this, he squinted his eyes against the light to see how Grant was taking it. But Grant was staring at the ceiling as if he were watching patterns forming there.

"That's partly why I like to research so much," Carradine volunteered, and settled back to staring at the sparrows.

The Daughter of Time

To be continued ...

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Does Everyone Know What Day It is?

Prison Break starts today!

Rose's hopes of seeing any of the Prison Break cast as they filmed around Dallas this summer have not been fulfilled. However, there is much more of the season to film, we have seen signs on a nearby thoroughfare telling the crew where to park, and hope springs eternal. In the meantime, watching the show will do just fine.

DTags: Catholicism, Christianity

Know Thyself

If we don't take a good, honest look at ourselves we can never move away from what keeps us from God or toward doing His will.

... it is vitally important to acknowledge and name our sins. This is not simply a morbid exercise designed to make us feel bad about ourselves; it is, rather, an honest attempt to identify those parts of our lives that need improvement. No one can grow in any way, be it as an athlete or intellectually or spiritually, unless he or she becomes aware of mistakes and wrongdoings. So the purpose here is to become more deeply aware of our guilt and the negative effect it has on our relationship to God and on our ability to become good people. ...our prayer (paradoxically) is that we might feel the pain of our sins. This is not an end in itself, but, rather, a means to the greater end of resolving to avoid our sins in the future. If we wish to avoid mistakes, we must begin with the resolve that they are truly serious, and this resolve must be on both an intellectual and an emotional level. In short, we want to develop a repugnance for sin and a love for doing the will of God. ...

The Ignatian Workout: Daily Spiritual Exercises for a Healthy Faith

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

John Rhys-Davies ... My Hero

From a Jeffrey Overstreet interview during a Lord of the Rings publicity tour.

Jeffrey to JRD:
How much of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Catholic beliefs and perspective resonate with you?

John Rhys-Davies:I’m burying my career so substantially in these interviews that it’s painful. But I think that there are some questions that demand honest answers.

I think that Tolkien says that some generations will be challenged. And if they do not rise to meet that challenge, they will lose their civilization. That does have a real resonance with me.

I have had the ideal background for being an actor. I have always been an outsider. I grew up in colonial Africa. And I remember in 1955, it would have to be somewhere between July the 25th when the school holiday started and September the 18th when the holidays ended. My father took me down to the quayside in Dar-Es-Salaam harbor. And he pointed out a dhow in the harbor and he said, “You see that dhow there? Twice a year it comes down from Aden. It stops here and goes down [South]. On the way down it's got boxes of machinery and goods. On the way back up it’s got two or three little black boys on it. Now, those boys are slaves. And the United Nations will not let me do anything about it.”

The conversation went on. “Look, boy. There is not going to be a World War between Russia and the United. The next World War will be between Islam and the West.”

This is 1955! I said to him, “Dad, you’re nuts! The Crusades have been over for hundreds of years!”

And he said, “Well, I know, but militant Islam is on the rise again. And you will see it in your lifetime.”

He’s been dead some years now. But there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of him and think, “God, I wish you were here, just so I could tell you that you were right.”

What is unconscionable is that too many of your fellow journalists do not understand how precarious Western civilization is and what a jewel it is.

How did we get the sort of real democracy, how did we get the level of tolerance that allows me to propound something that may be completely alien to you around this table, and yet you will take it and you will think about it and you’ll say no you’re wrong because of this and this and this. And I’ll listen and I’ll say, “Well, actually, maybe I am wrong because of this and this.”

[He points at a female reporter and adopts an authoritarian voice, to play a militant-Islam character:] ‘You should not be in this room. Because your husband or your father is not hear to guide you. You could only be here in this room with these strange men for immoral purposes.’

I mean… the abolition of slavery comes from Western democracy. True Democracy comes form our Greco-Judeo-Christian-Western experience. If we lose these things, then this is a catastrophe for the world.

And there is a demographic catastrophe happening in Europe that nobody wants to talk about, that we daren’t bring up because we are so cagey about not offending people racially. And rightly we should be. But there is a cultural thing as well.

By 2020, 50% of the children in Holland under the age of 18 will be of Muslim descent. You look and see what your founding fathers thought of the Dutch. They are constantly looking at the rise of democracy and Dutch values as being the very foundation of American Democracy. If by the mid-century the bulk of Holland is Muslim—and don’t forget, coupled with this there is this collapse of numbers ... Western Europeans are not having any babies. The population of Germany at the end of the century is going to be 56% of what it is now. The populations of France, 52% of what it is now. The population of Italy is going to be down 7 million people. There is a change happening in the very complexion of Western civilization in Europe that we should think about at least and argue about. If it just means the replacement of one genetic stock with another genetic stock, that doesn’t matter too much. But if it involves the replacement of Western civilization with a different civilization with different cultural values, then it is something we really ought to discuss—because, g**dammit, I am for dead white male culture.

You do realize in this town what I’ve been saying [is like] blasphemy…

…but we’ve got to get a bit serious. By and large our cultures and our society are resilient enough to put up with any sort of nonsense. But if Tolkien’s got a message, it’s that “Sometimes you’ve got to stand up and fight for what you believe in.” He knew what he was fighting for in WW1.

[With that, he departed our appreciative and applauding table, saying:] Try and put verbs in my sentences.

Romantic ABCs

I have been meaning to post this for some time. Yes it's corny but often the best things in life are simply because they are so obvious that they have become cliche. That doesn't make them any less wonderful when your spouse springs one on you.

Also, this has been much on my mind because we are having a meeting tonight with interested couples who attended our first marriage retreat. We will be discerning which roles we will undertake in presenting the retreat all on our own (hopefully, if all roles are filled) with no outside help. A big part of what we discovered on our own retreat was the need to be more romantic.

So without further ado ...

Always kiss each other hello and goodbye. Be there for each other -- always. Create an environment of love. Do it. Escape from the kids. Fight fair. Give of your time. Handle with care. Inspire your partner with love. Judge not. Keep your good memories alive. Listen to her. Make love with your partner's needs foremost. Never go to bed angry. Offer to handle an unpleasant chore. Praise him. Quality time isn't just for the kids. Respect her feelings. Say what you feel when you feel it. Tell her you love her every day. Every day. Understand your differences. Valentine's Day is every day. Walk together; talk together. EXcite your partner as only you know how. You can never say "I love you" too often. Zero-in on his little passions.

Choose a letter. Follow the corresponding piece of advice this week. Choose a different letter next week.

1001 Ways to Be Romantic

Achieving Perfection

Aaargh! Can we do that? Even the saints have their faults (the oft-mentioned St. Jerome's crabbiness comes to mind instantly). However, this excerpt can give us a better focus on just what achieving perfection means.

[Jesus said,] "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Mt 5:48)

To praise, reverence, and serve God is to achieve our perfection as human beings. Jesus' command is difficult, though: no one is perfect. And so immediately we must recognize that Jesus is not calling us to some antiseptic kind of life, in which we are afraid to do anything by our very humanness, we are capable of being loved by God and thus capable of loving as God loves. The quote above about being perfect comes after Jesus' command to love our enemies, suggesting that our perfection lies precisely in our ability to mirror the kind of love that God has for all of us.

There is nothing we must do in order to be loved by God. There is nothing we must achieve, nothing we must change, nothing we must seek before God loves us; it is already an accomplished fact because God created us in order to love us. Our perfection is simply our desire to respond to this already accomplished fact, to make our lives great because we are capable of it.

The Ignatian Workout: Daily Spiritual Exercises for a Healthy Faith

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Created for God's Own Delight

God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them ... And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. (Gn 1:27-31)

... our truest, deepest selves were created by God simply for God's own delight in creating us. Each human being is a unique work of art; God throws away the mold after making each one of us. What this suggests, then, is that our lives have unique ways of praising, reverencing, and serving God -- even when we are unaware that we are doing it. I marvel at the array of talents and lifestyles out there, especially those that are completely foreign to me because they remind me how varied are the ways that people can praise God. Some people praise God through their friendships; others through their art; others through their perseverance; others through their work. In short, when we are most ourselves, doing what we are capable of doing, we are praising God.

The Ignatian Workout: Daily Spiritual Exercises for a Healthy Faith

When I read this I was suddenly seized with the idea that some of our most prominent characteristics, perhaps those which provide us with the most embarrassment (say, for example, extreme enthusiasm ... just to mention what could possibly apply to ... ahem ... me) actually might be the very things that God specially built in. That he might ... delight in someone showing all that enthusiasm. Not that I'm embarrassed (exactly) of being enthusiastic but it can lead to all sorts of awkward situations and does bring knowing glances from those who can recognize me in the throes of a new passion for something. Certainly, it has led me many times to rush forward where angels fear to tread.

But the idea that God is enjoying it, that if it is used to serve Him, in whatever way ... that was eye opening. And welcome.

If this is a new idea, you might want to take a few minutes to consider what He is delighting in that you haven't properly appreciated as a God-given trait or talent. It is truly enlightening.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Another Saint for August 15: St. Alipius

I just finished reading a really fantastic book about saint, Saints Behaving Badly: The Cutthroats, Crooks, Trollops, Con Men, and Devil-Worshippers Who Became Saints by Thomas J. Craughwell. A full review will come later but I thought that I'd share a few excerpts (imagine that!) before then.

I never knew that St. Augustine had a very close friend, Alipius, who was so addicted to blood sports (gladiatorial combat to the death) that it was all consuming. Alipius was so addicted that when his friends tired of attending, he would go and lure new innocents to attend with him. It's an odd thing that Alipius was such a good friend of Augustine's that he followed him to Milan and Carthage, became a Manichean along with him ... but none of Augustine's entreaties could sway him from his addiction. Here is where my admiration for St. Ambrose, already great because of his influence converting Augustine, becomes even greater. I can't imagine what an unbelievable speaker he must have been. As Craughwell tells us:

Drawn by Ambrose' reputation for eloquence, Augustine began attending the bishop's masses. And where Augustine went, Alipius followed. Ambrose's sermons fell on fertile ground. After a period of private instruction with the bishop, Augustine and Alipius -- along with Augustine's illegitimate son Adeodatus -- were baptized by St. Ambrose on the night of the Easter Vigil, 387.

When Alipius renounced the Manichean heresy for the Catholic faith, he also gave up the amphitheater. Strengthened by the grace of the sacraments, he never went to the gladiatorial games again.

Baptism seems to have drawn Alipius and Augustine even closer, with careers that followed identical paths. They both entered the priesthood and returned home to North Africa, where Augustine was named bishop of Hippo and Alipius bishop of their hometown, Thagaste. ...

Did you see who else was baptized along with Alipius and Augustine? Augustine's son ... and I may have read that before but certainly didn't remember it at all.

I like thinking of St. Augustine having such a good friend for his whole life. Certainly, I think that Alipius deserves to be better known. His fight against his obsessive nature (you'll have to read the book to see just how hard he fought and lost) is one that lends his intercession to many of us these days.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

When Zombies Attack ...

... will you know what to do?

How about if you're stuck in traffic when alien robots begin attacking your city?

Or if you've become a camp counselor ... at Crystal Lake!

I didn't think so.

Thank goodness for the Geek Survival Guide. Why without this invaluable podcast I'd never have thought of putting batteries in my sock to make a Flail (-2).

(If none of this makes sense, then thank your lucky stars. You are not a geek. Sadly, I was laughing so hard that I almost rolled off the couch.)

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Read Me a Story ...

... over at Spero News. I wrote a post about sources of free audiobooks before but this article is expanded and clarified (hopefully!).

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Entering Into God's Presence

... God’s love is constant. It is always fresh and new. It is exhilarating not only because of the way it makes us feel but because of the new horizons it opens in our lives—the way it explains who we really are and why we’re here in the first place. Everything else melts away, and we are caught up in an experience that words alone cannot describe, an experience that changes us from the inside out.

How to Enter into God’s Presence. As awesome and intimidating as this may seem, it’s really not all that difficult to enter into the presence of the Lord and experience his love. On the contrary, Jesus longs for us come to him. He actually enjoys being with us and delights in pouring his love upon us—even more than we long to receive it! Whatever roadblocks exist are generally related to our own sin, our own lack of repentance, or our own complacency.

Of course, it is possible to experience God’s presence without putting in any effort at all. After all, that’s what happened to Paul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:4). But it is far more common to be touched by God when we are in prayer. That’s what happened to Isaiah (Isaiah 1:1-6), to Zechariah (Luke 1:8-11), and to Peter, James, and John (9:28-29). So let’s take a closer look at prayer and ask how we can become more open to God’s touch in our lives.

Passionately seek him. Because of the demands of everyday life, it can be very easy for our faith to become too regimented. Like the Colossians, we can fall into legalisms and lose sight of faith’s primary goal: to ground us in a loving experience of Jesus. If you feel that your prayer has become somewhat mechanical or dry, go before the Lord and say, “Jesus, I want to know you. Come shower me with your love. Transform my life into whatever you desire. I am yours.” The truth is, we all need to cry out to the Lord like this every day—throughout our days, but especially when we are in prayer.

Word Among Us

I have been returning more and more to that spot in my own life. Thanks to the on-line retreat making me more aware of God in the everyday, all around me, I have rediscovered that longing to know Jesus better. Yes, I already knew it and, yes, it is a no-brainer ... but "knowing" and "living" are two different things. It is all too easy to become lukewarm, for me anyway, and it is exciting to be pulled out of it back into a more familiar communion with my best and truest friend who wants nothing but my own good.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Soy? No Way ...

... half and half or nothing.

Oh. Wait.

That's being dogmatic and picky isn't it?

You Are a Soy Latte

At your best, you are: free spirited, down to earth, and relaxed At your worst, you are: dogmatic and picky You drink coffee when: you need a pick me up, and green tea isn't cutting it Your caffeine addiction level: medium

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

Via a good slug of black coffee a.k.a. Georgette.

Some Good Weekend Reading

The Jelly Pinched Wolf has some interesting posts up about Mel Gibson and The Crucible, The Grapes of Wrath (finally someone says what I've always thought about that darned book), and the various critiques of Cars.

I'd have linked to him sooner but kept forgetting to drop by since I'm really hooked into Bloglines for saving story links for later ... if he'd just turn on his RSS feed I'd have a better chance of keeping up. However you get there though it is well worth reading. Check it out.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity