Bloggurgatory ... or ... Purgatory for Catholic Bloggers

Acts of the Apostasy began it.

Maybe Catholic bloggers will have to endure sufferings that are a bit more...I don't know, personal. Custom-fit.

And carried on with an amusing list of tailor-made purifications for the likes of:

Fr Z - drink instant coffee while blogging on a 386...with a dial-up connection.

The Curt Jester picked up that baton and ran with it (what a shock!) and came up with one of my actual fears.

Fr. Phillip Neri Powell, OP His purgatory would be something like being trapped in a gigantic library with no books on the shelves.  Kind of like the Twilight Zone episode “Time Enough at Last” where book lover Burgess Merideth and ends with a gigantic pile of books around him and his glasses broken.  In fact that would be my Purgatory also – or perhaps Hell.  This would also be purgatory for Video meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor, and Happy Catholic.

Although I actually always saw Purgatory as a place filled with books that are super-old and I always managed to avoid, but now find that had information that would have turned me into a saint if only I had read those people's take on holiness. (St. Faustina's diary is among my special fears. I'm into the divine mercy and all, I just don't want to have to read her book about it.)

So do yourself a favor. Go see what they've dreamed up. You will laugh and maybe it will scare you straight ... straight into holiness!  (Be sure to read Ironic Catholic's purgatory ... that is my other fear.)

St. Martha's Feast Day: "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things."

Today is St. Martha's feast day. Depending on the source you check, she's the patron saint of housewives, cooks, and servants.

She is also my patron saint.

I was looking over a list of saints before I was confirmed and saw that she was the patron saint of housewives. I love being at home and cooking (though not cleaning). That aside, I figured that was as good a reason as any. Also the main story I knew (the one we all think of) made me think of her as a little sassy. That fit too.


Little did I know that, once again, God was being sneaky in pairing me up with the perfect “big sister” to help me get through some of my worst tendencies. As I looked into her story more, I saw someone who had a unique friendship with Jesus and whose faith journey is clearly traced for us.

I have the privilege of presenting St. Martha to a wider audience at Patheos today, on her special day ... in my A Free Mind column. Please do go read about my dear Martha there.

What Do You Get When You Mix a Snoring Scholar and a Happy Catholic?

What do you find is the most compelling part of your story as more people read your book and you share your story with them?


If this doesn’t sound too presumptuous, it is that I get to see a little of how the Holy Spirit works. Honestly, I am very often humbled by what people say that God shows them when reading the book. Very little of what they have found is what I put in there, if that makes sense. They are getting messages that I didn’t specifically write. That is God at work.

[...]

The lovely, charming, sweet, and popular blogger, Sarah Reinhard (aka Snoring Scholar) interviewed me via email.

Click through on the link to read it and while you're there be sure to look around. For one thing, Sarah reads all sorts of books that I wouldn't think to try. Often I find myself adding to my list after visiting her place. And her sunny personality and love of her faith is everywhere.

UDMC Catholic Conference 2011

Evidently they've been having this great conference here for several years ... and I just found out about it.

This is actually titled a Ministry Conference, but many of the talks are more general than that. They say:

If you are interested in participating in the conference as a Catholic parishioner, we encourage you to check out the following tracks, which are relevant to every Catholic. They feature talks that discuss family life, marriage, parenting, social justice, faith formation, Scripture, and Christian spirituality.

John Allen will be giving two talks and Lisa Hendey also will be giving two talks. I met Lisa a couple of years ago in San Antonio at the Catholic New Media Conference. What a sweetheart!

Also, I have an early copy of her new book, A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms, and I'm just going to say, you need a copy. Don't let the "Moms" on the cover fool you. This is for anyone in a family ... wives, husbands, grown children ... it is simply fantastic. I'd tell you all about it but I've promised that "mum's the word" until the official publishing date. It. is. amazing. Trust me on this.

Ahem ... now, what was I saying?

Oh, right. So Tom and I are going to the UDMC in late October. It is surprisingly inexpensive. Check it out if you live near enough to make it for the weekend.

A Big Story in the Big Valley Discussing Some Big Ideas ...

East of Eden is up for discussion at A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast, where I eat crow with surprising grace (I think) considering how hard I was screaming about having to read Steinbeck.

The 2011 Bulwer-Lytton Contest Winners Are Here!

What is the Bulwer-Lytton Contest?

Since 1982 the English Department at San Jose State University has sponsored the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels. The contest was the brainchild of Professor Scott Rice, whose graduate school excavations unearthed the source of the line "It was a dark and stormy night." ...

My favorites from this year's roundup are:

Runner Up

As I stood among the ransacked ruin that had been my home, surveying the aftermath of the senseless horrors and atrocities that had been perpetrated on my family and everything I hold dear, I swore to myself that no matter where I had to go, no matter what I had to do or endure, I would find the man who did this . . . and when I did, when I did, oh, there would be words.

Rodney Reed

Ooltewah, TN

Winner: Adventure

From the limbs of ancient live oaks moccasins hung like fat black sausages -- which are sometimes called boudin noir, black pudding or blood pudding, though why anyone would refer to a sausage as pudding is hard to understand and it is even more difficult to divine why a person would knowingly eat something made from dried blood in the first place -- but be that as it may, our tale is of voodoo and foul murder, not disgusting food.

Jack Barry

Ancient Arabia, Djinn, and Two Improbable Heroes: reviewing The Desert of Souls

The Desert of Souls by Howard Andrew Jones

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The glittering tradition of sword-and-sorcery sweeps into the sands of ancient Arabia with the heart-stopping speed of a whirling dervish in this thrilling debut novel from new talent Howard Andrew Jones

In 8th century Baghdad, a stranger pleads with the vizier to safeguard the bejeweled tablet he carries, but he is murdered before he can explain. Charged with solving the puzzle, the scholar Dabir soon realizes that the tablet may unlock secrets hidden within the lost city of Ubar, the Atlantis of the sands. When the tablet is stolen from his care, Dabir and Captain Asim are sent after it, and into a life and death chase through the ancient Middle East.

This was an easy and exciting read and I finished it quickly, partially because I was flipping the pages so fast.

Asim and Dabir somewhat remind me of Number Ten Ox and Master Li from Barry Hughart's stories of a China that never was. Asim is not as dim as Number Ten Ox and Dabir is not as wise (or old) as Master Li, but it is a classic pairing of brawn and brains, which can lead to misunderstandings that are sometimes comic but which can endanger everything if both do not learn to trust one another. By the end of the book we are fond of both characters, as, indeed, they are of each other.

The adventure itself is multi-faceted and highly inventive, while still remaining true to form in what feels like a factually based universe. In fact, Jones has taken great care to keep the historical facts true to form with Jaffar and the caliph being based on the actual historical people. In this, he must have been highly influenced by the stories of Harold Lamb, several volumes of which he collected into anthologies before writing his own novel.

Room was clearly left for more adventures and I hope that Jones is at work on the next. I can't wait to see what Asim and Dabir must tangle with next.

Most of my reviews are posted on this Book Reviews page.

The Church and New Media

This week I have completed nine years of blogging and so I can say that I have some perspective on the growth of the so-called Catholic “New Media.” Nine years ago I could pretty much read every post in the Catholic blogosphere during a short lunch. Catholic audio on the internet was extremely limited and podcasting was still a couple more years into the future. The growth of new media for Catholics has been quite an interesting thing to watch.

Bearing that in mind I was quite happy to review the new book by blogger Brandon Vogt The Church and New Media: Blogging Converts, Online Activists, and Bishops Who Tweet. ...

The Curt Jester has a great review which I was very interested to read. I am having trouble keeping my head above water just at the moment so won't be reviewing it ... so please do go check out Jeff's review. I've been reading his blog almost as long as he's been writing it and I trust him.

The Con is On ... Again ...

My review of Red Glove, book 2 in the series that began with White Cat, is up at SFFaudio.

Vi sørger med deg, Norge. (We grieve with thee, Norway.)

Kan dine barn hvile i fred. (May thy children rest in peace.)*

One of the problems with getting practically all your news from a printed newspaper and with not reading blogs (or at least many of them) over the weekend, is that the television, the blogosphere, and all that other new media move so fast past any big news story.

I was horrified to read about the massacres in Norway.

As *Maureen says so well, we grieve with you and pray for you.

Weekend Joke

Ok, I know it is the wrong time of year for this, but I just couldn't help it. You've got to have this joke!

I was driving down a lonely country road one cold winter day when it began to sleet pretty heavily. My windows were getting icy and my wiper blades were badly worn and quickly fell apart under the strain.

Unable to drive any further because of the ice building up on my front window I suddenly had a great idea. I stopped and began to overturn large rocks until I located two very lethargic hibernating rattle snakes. I grabbed them up, straightened them out flat and installed them on my blades and they worked just fine.

What! You've never heard of . . . wind chilled vipers?

Audio: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, narrated by Jim Dale

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

My rating: 5 of 5 stars




Everyone knows this story.

I read this aloud to the girls, long ago, when it first came out. In fact, it was handy having the series coming out as it did. We read along with each book. Harry's world got more complex as he grew older and the girls grew older just at the right time to enjoy each one. We must have read at least the first three or four books in the series that way. Then we'd get the new one and pass it around, reading at break-neck speed and steadfastly refusing to discuss it until the last person had finished.

With the last movie coming out, I began thinking about rereading the books but already have too much reading on my plate. So I got the audio for the first book from the library.

What a treat!

Jim Dale is such an accomplished narrator that the book is taking on new life. Not only am I rediscovering what a wonderful book it is, but his voicing of the characters is giving each of them new depth and life as well.

That is what the really good audiobooks do, though, is make a book into a new experience. It also becomes more immediate, more personal, if you will. (I discovered that listening to East of Eden, when I had to switch to the regular printed book in order to distance myself from the bad people Steinbeck was writing about.)


My Goodreads reviews. For my older reviews, see the Books page on this blog.

Snapshot: I got into Google+ ...

... it echoes in there.

It's strange to be a place that is essentially Facebook but with so few people.

Kind of nice though. Like just having moved into a house, before you get all the furniture.

And the "circles" idea is good. Though I haven't done much with any of it yet.

Not that I do much with Facebook either, though.

The Good Wife: great summer TV

The seemingly endless days of high Texas temperatures have sapped my interest in talking about books. I'd recommend a movie but brainless summer movies like Transformers 3 or Zookeeper sap my energy even more.

What is a free mind that loves good stories to do? Turn to television, of course!

Allow me to recommend "The Good Wife," an addictive pleasure worth a lazy summer's evening. Part legal drama, part political commentary, and part soap opera, "The Good Wife" is intelligent, brilliantly nuanced, riveting entertainment. This show doesn't veer away from discussing faith and true human nature in authentic terms.

My latest A Free Mind column at Patheos ... read it all there!

Kate Wicker's review of Happy Catholic: " ... even pop culture can’t escape the wisdom of God."

... whether I’m reading something out of the mouth of a great theologian or an animated superhero from The Incredibles, I’m getting a glimpse of God and how He can be found everywhere – in humor, in sorrow, in the tabernacle, in a secular world, in the most quotidian particulars of life.

So much of our faith is found in living it, and it’s difficult to live our faith if we only feel God is nearby when we’re at church or when we’re participating in formal prayer. What I love about Julie’s approach to spirituality and religion is that there’s always an opportunity for growth and reflection no matter what you find yourself doing, seeing, reading, experiencing, or feeling.

That's not all Kate Wicker has to say in her really nice review of Happy Catholic (the book) ... including a special confession about the special place she goes to read it. I'm not tellin', I'm just sayin' you have to go read it for yourself.

While you're there, take a look around at Kate's blog. She's got her own new book out, Weightless, and you can see from her blog that she's another who sees God all around her. I especially liked "Why I Love My Grandma" (and no, it isn't as sappy as it sounds ... but you're used to that from being around here, right? Right!).

My interview on Christopher Closeup ...

... or how I discovered that it really is the interviewer who makes the interview good.

From my point of view anyway. I guess if you listen and don't like the interview, then we know who to blame ... and it ain't Tony Rossi.

I had exchanged emails with Tony for years but it was a real pleasure to get to talk to him in person. What a swell guy! He really is a fitting representative for a great group like The Christophers.

The podcast is now online at The Christophers.

If you like Catholic radio instead of podcasts, the show will air on:

• Sirius-XM’s The Catholic Channel (Channel 129) this Sunday July 24 at 7:00 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Eastern (6:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. Central).
• Relevant Radio the same day at 2:30 p.m. Eastern (1:30 p.m. Central).

Potatoes, Basil, and Creativity

There's a certain sense of accomplishment I feel when I am getting dinner ready, realizing that somehow I should be working in disparate ingredients from the CSA cooler. It's like being on one of those cooking shows, handed a box of odd ingredients and told to make dinner with it.

Certainly it pushes me out of my comfort zone and into inspiration. And sometimes ... every so often ... it pushes me into a place where my family is delighted with the inspiration.

Yesterday, for example, I was making Baked Salmon with Horseradish Sauce. I had picked up some fresh green beans at the store last weekend but was wondering what starch to have with the meal. Then I remembered the red potatoes from the CSA, some of them were fairly small. I could have potatoes and green beans.


Read the rest at Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen.

John Carter of Mars Trailer

I could never get into the books (and oh how I've tried) but I could definitely get into this movie.

Directed by Andrew Stanton. Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo, Wall-E, and now this live action movie. I'm ready.

Via Scott at Rivets and Trees.

UPDATED
I forgot to say ... the music, oh the music! I am ready to buy that soundtrack now ...

For Better, For Worse, For God: the book every married couple should read - together

I have seen two different bloggers lately talk about the efforts they are making to reconnect with spouses. And I've gotten emails from two people that have mentioned the same problem.

We're talking "well-marriage" connections, which are an ever-present struggle for every couple, all the time. Let's just get that out there and think about it. All the time. Every couple.


This book really is like a marriage retreat in a book. I first reviewed this book back in 2009 and think that is it time to remind everyone about this great resource. I give it to newlyweds and it probably seems like an odd gift at the time. I hope that they crack the cover open later and delve into the goodness. There is much inside to help "well-marriages" get even better.

With that, let's rerun the review ...

For Better, for Worse, for God: Exploring the Holy Mystery of Marriage

... becoming one flesh means more than a physical union. Genesis says that God created man and woman to become one body. The Hebrew word for body or "flesh," refers to the physical body for sure, but it encompasses much more. Body includes the whole person: body, mind, and spirit. We're called to be united with our spouse physically, emotionally, and spiritually while retaining our unique individuality. God's design for this partnership is that it nurtures our lives and in so doing gives life to the world.

Men Are from Mars and Women Are from Venus--John Gray and his publishers picked a great title for his bestselling book on marriage. It has become a popular shorthand way of saying that men and women are profoundly different. They are so different that it often seems they live on different planets.

In addition to the obvious anatomical differences, men and women are "wired" differently in their communication styles, emotional makeup, and sexual responses. You and your spouse differ as individuals. Your temperaments are different. You come into marriage with dissimilar expectations, desires, hopes and approaches to problem solving. And while you don't really live on different planets, you come from different places. You were raised in different families. Your family of origin gave you ideas about marriage, child rearing, sex roles, and family values that are different from your spouse's. Some marriage experts say that incompatibility was never a valid reaon for divorce becuase all couples are incompatible to some extent.

Creating an "us" in the face of these differences is a challenging dimension of the vocation of marriage. to become "one," partners must understand the many ways in which they differ from each other and recognize how their differences can work in their favor in terms of their partnership. They also need to learn to manage these differences without hurting each other.

First, becoming an "us" is a realistic goal. The differences between men and women are great, but the desire to achieve unity is even greater. Men and women deeply desire each other; most men and women want to share their lives with a partner of the opposite sex. ... If God created us this way, we can be assured that he gives us the grace to achieve the union we desire.

Second, the work of becoming an "us" is spiritual work, and it requires spiritual disciplines, as already mentioned. Each vocation has its distinctive challenges, and becoming one with a particular other person for life is the unique challenge of marriage; the spiritual disciplines of marriage are the tools we use to achieve it. The disciplines we practice within marriage may seem mundane, such as counting to ten before returning an angry response, or waiting patiently for a spouse who is slow, but they accomplish something remarkable. They allow us to live in communion with someone who feels, perceives, reacts, responds, and loves differently from us.

Living in communion is holy because the conjugal life both mirrors and provides the world with an experience of belonging and acceptance God desires with us. Like the "communion" we experience in the sacraments of the Eucharist, marriage can provide the opportunity to "be one in Christ," the goal for all baptized believers.

Someone who has attended one of the Beyond Cana marriage enrichment retreats that Tom and I help to present may recognize many, if not all, of the principles above. Members of the presentation team definitely will. After working on these retreats for several years, I can tell you that I was blown away by Mary Jo Pederson's book. She consistently took the concepts that Tom and I have learned and practiced in that retreat and expanded upon them in knowledgeable, practical, spiritual, and even humorous ways.

If I included all the pieces that I read aloud to Tom, only to hear him say, "Wow. That is so true. This author is really good!" then we'd be here all day. This is the book I will be buying for newly weds, friends who wish they could make it to a retreat, and for our girls when they are getting married. It can't replace a retreat but it surely is a good supplement and a great grounding in reality for any married couple. Highest recommendations on this one.

Driveby Review: Two Brainless Movies

I rented these knowing that they required no brain and that I was going "off list" and that they hadn't really received critical acclaim.

I was going for summer blockbuster silliness. And we got it. Oh brotha, we got it.

Spoilers included because you've likely heard of these and they each had one point that annoyed me like crazy. As always, good reminders not to get your theology from Hollywood.

The A-Team
I suspended disbelief and so all was very well until we got to the part where Mr. T took up nonviolence. Actually, all was very well after that for some time because I was surprised and pleased that they would play with the action movie template in such an unexpected way.

Where I was annoyed was when Mr. T is pushed to give up his renunciation of his gangsta ways by using Gandi's quotes against him. Now, I get it. Obviously there's the set up so that Mr. T must choose to save his buddy from secondary villain. I was hoping that he would cleverly find a way to do it without killing him. Which would have shown Liam Neeson's character that he didn't know everything (btw, Liam looked like a wimpy grandpa amongst the macho guys in this film - he's no George Peppard ... I'm just sayin'). Wrong. When he pulled off his helmet to sport that gangsta/hood mohawk, I was so disappointed. Hannah said, "The worst thing is, most of the audiences probably saw this as positive character development." Ouch. That hurt even worse.

I'm not even gonna get into the "what were they thinking" comments we had about Jessica Biel's casting. No personality, an uptight character, and no chemistry with Bradley Cooper (who's got chemistry and to spare ... am I right, ladies?). Oh, I guess I did get into it.

Overall: not horrible if you are going for brainless action movie. Just not as good as it could have been. On the other hand, it was no Transformers movie, so it's got that going for it. What the heck. Rent it.


The Adjustment Bureau
If only I had known that it was based on a story by Philip K. Dick, I'd have expected the lack of free will nonsense being shown throughout the movie. Now, I haven't read the story but I'd bet it didn't have the nice, happy ending that they put in this. I'd bet there was memory erasure going at high speed. As for that "you can have free will if you're willing to fight for it" line ... that was pretty much nonsense if you look at all the trouble they went to hunting down Matt Damon and also freezing and adjusting people who got out of line with "the Chairman's plan." They weren't angels and the Chairman was a creepy vision of God. I was pulling for them to be fallen angels with the Chairman down under, if you know what I mean. However, stupid theology aside, the plot holes are big enough to drive a bus through.

Avoid this one.