 | Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of Posts |
It's particularly easy to be snarky when blogging, because it feels like you're not really talking to anybody. Which is weird, given the fact that you're talking to everybody. - Karen Hall of "Some Have Hats"
In human affairs there is nothing from which he does not extract enjoyment, even from things that are most serious. If he converses with the learned and judicious, he delights in their talent, if with the ignorant and foolish, he enjoys their stupidity. He is not even offended by professional jesters. With a wonderful dexterity he accommodates himself to every disposition. As a rule, in talking with women, even with his own wife, he is full of jokes and banter. No one is less led by the opinions of the crowd, yet no one departs less from common sense. - Desiderius Erasmus on St. Thomas More, via Meredith of "Basia Me, Catholica Sum"
I can easily see how the nuclear family in and of itself tends to reduce family size. Having only one set of hands to care for baby is a massive job. Two sets of hands, is livable but hard. How having a grandparent, aunt, cousin, etc. around to help out makes a big boost in terms of restoring sanity to new parents. I'm certain this logic carries forward when adding further children to the mix, although after 2 I'm told economies of scale begin to kick in. I know there are many other factors influencing small family size -- including the expense of raising children in this culture and the death of the family wage for the married man. But that's my two cents for the night. - Olde Oligarch
I read somewhere that the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs was nearing its apex in America, but that outsourcing of service jobs was just beginning and would soon be having a huge impact. That rings true...Tonight, as I was out buying a pizza for dinner and fighting the long line at the carry-out at Pizza Hut, it occurred to me that outsourcing begins at home. I don't fix my own car anymore, don't even change my own oil anymore. I don't fix my own furnace, I don't even try. Someone came and replaced our doors and windows, we had our roof done by a firm -- my own father, at my age, would have spent his evenings doing all those things and my own mother would have spent the evening making dinner instead of us having carry-out. It's a changing world. - Rock of "Lofted Nest"
Here's a tip I learned long ago...and it works. First, remember: the commandment is to love your neighbors (including your enemies). It doesn't demand that you like them! So. About that SOB who is constantly telling you exactly what you're doing wrong with your life...or that total idiot who just cut you off in traffic...or that in-law who insists on telling you the proper way to raise your own children...or that [fill in the blank #*@(@*#&@ person]? Here's what you want to do: (I didn't make this up. A friend -- a holy person, actually -- clued me in on this one long ago.) Pray for the creep. (N.B. It's probably not a hot idea to use the word "creep" in your prayer.) Here's a prayer I often use: "Dear God, please put that so-and-so in a higher place than me in Your Heavenly Kingdom. Amen." That's it! - the inimitable Pewlady
Any discussions about the "practical" aspects of [early reception of the sacrament of Confirmation] must take a backseat to theology, and the mis-placement of confirmation oh, lo these many decades in many parts of the world has really been a travesty, and done great damage to a proper theological understanding of confirmation itself and the sacraments of initiation as a whole. And, turning to pragmatic considerations, anyway, as we've discussed here before, adolescent confirmation, shorn from its baptismal associations and proximity to Eucharist, by 10-15 years in the life of the one celebrating, has become, in practice, less a sacrament (in perception) than a ritualized sociological marker of, not Christian initiation, but initiation into adulthood (sort of), and, more practically, a tool for blackmail...go through this, and you won't have to go to religious ed any more. More common than you think. - Amy Welborn of "Open Book"
For more than a day after intercourse with a woman, a man will experience a moderate psychological aversion to women other than the one he slept with. - Patrick of Orthonormal Basis, on a study that lends support to the exclusivity factor in relationships
As a side note, Philip Jenkins, an Episcopalian, has a line in his book "Hidden Gospels" suggesting early Church fathers would have thought it absurd that Christians should have Scripture in their homes. They couldn't envision Scripture outside the Sacraments.- Rich Leonardi of "Ten Reasons"
The theory of evolution is far more than adaptation and survival of the fittest, or however the popular mind seeks to characterize it. The materialism and randomness at the heart of the theory must be dealt with by theists, who do their faith no credit by simply saying, "Oh, God could have started it all." At heart, the Darwinian theory of evolution and traditional Judeo-Christian theism are a much harder fit than many people think. That said, I'm not for teaching Intelligent Design in public schools. What I am for is a more honest instruction in the theory of evolution - acknoweldging the problems, the gaps and the intelligent, scientifically-based challenges to it. One could do this, I'd think, without espousing Creationism. - Amy Welborn
In Germany, he was asked about survival of the fittest. He told them it was not a strange thing at all -- the fit will survive of themselves. "But in my experience," he said, "what I have seen is the survival of the unfit. And that is where God's glory comes in." - Sundar Singh via "Happy Catholic"
No comments:
Post a Comment