Spanning the Proverbial Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of PostsA decade ago I had about of year of overwhelming self-doubt to overcome. Sometimes you trick yourself into thinking that quitting will be better for your partner; this has to be resisted. By the grace of God [our marriage] endured, and at the height of being self-absorbed in doubt, it occurred to me that I could step out of myself and start each day absorbed in what my partner was going through and what I could do to bring harmony to her day (because I wasn't bringing harmony to mine). That was the defining moment for me; once I chose to be as fully compassionate and understanding of my partner's day as possible, my personal confusions lost their hold on me. I know this isn't rocket science, but emphasizing other-centeredness at the height of one's own emptiness isn't the obvious choice in the moment. I sometimes wonder if women embrace this choice much more readily -- particularly mothers. Carrying a child is obviously 9 months of other-centeredness 24/7, and that's just the beginning. I'm probably being way too serious, but I consider Marriage to be a mysterious and miraculous sacrament of transformation. It reveals qualities of living and loving one may not come to know any other way. - blogger at "Yes, Sister"
If you really want something in life you have to work for it. Now quiet, they're about to announce the lottery numbers.- Homer Simpson, via Julie of Happy Catholic
Humility is the new beige..It goes with everything. -Therese Z of Exultet
Christ responds neither directly nor abstractly to human questioning about the meaning of suffering. Human beings come to know His saving response in so far as they share in the sufferings of Christ. - Pope John Paul II
In one of his lectures, Peter Kreeft recommended several books for saving civilization as we know it: Lost in the Cosmos, Walker Percy, Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis, Everlasting man, G. K. Chesterton Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton, Brave New World, Aldous Huxley - Vincent of "What a Mystery"
And these words, from the English poet John Dryden, are etched on a wall next to the choir loft:
"But oh! what art can teach,
What human voice can reach
The sacred organ's praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their Heav'nly ways,
To mend the choirs above." - commenter on Amy's blog
The transition from tenseness, self-responsibility, and worry, to equanimity, receptivity, and peace, is the most wonderful of all those shiftings of inner equilibrium, those changes of personal centre of energy, which I have analyzed so often; and the chief wonder of it is that it so often comes about, not by doing, but by simply relaxing and throwing the burden down.” -William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (via Terry Teachout)
Work is the curse of the blogging class. -commenter on Amy's blog
Perhaps I'm biased, being both a Catholic and a Southerner, but it's always seemed to me that the traditional Southern approach to life and humanity is particularly congenial to Roman Catholicism, and that congregational Protestantism holds sway here only because (a) that's the type of religion that historically spread here first and (b) anti-Catholicism is instilled in people while they're young. The Southern character, though, is eminently suited to Catholicism. I'm thinking especially of the South's sectional mythology, our old notions of aristocracy and kinship, our comfortable tolerance for what is strange and eccentric, our respect for tradition, our general freedom from the Protestant work ethic, and the darker recognition (confirmed by the loss of the War) that man is fallen and that he is not promised victory in this life. All of which has long made me think that the Southland is the closest thing in the world to Spain. - Fr. Jim of Dappled Things
For some reason, the end of the world somehow seems 10% more likely.
-Andrew of Holy Whapping on news of Sr. Lucia's death
The blogger quotes someone to the effect that the blogosphere has been crowing of late about bringing Eason Jordan down - can the blogosphere save a life?- Amy Welborn, on this
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