Seven Quick Takes

On a picture of an old Irish house like the one I took years ago and is hanging in my hallway: 

Does anyone else pass by a photo of a beautiful house and imagine what it looks like inside? 📸 This is a photo taken by Ontario photographer Gillian M. (missquitecontrary on Etsy) that I bought almost ten years ago and have loved every day since. 📸 It’s a portrait of a house taken somewhere in Ireland and every time I look at it I imagine all sorts of stories that could, and maybe would have transpired in and around it:) 🏡 Isnt’t it funny and strange and wonderful how houses can speak to us without ever actually saying a word…

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Copying the culture in order to influence the culture doesn't seem too effective. Protestants started to copy the culture by providing “rock concerts”, female pastors, entertaining sermons, large screen displays. And then Catholics tried to copy Protestantism by ditching the Latin, singing folk songs with pianos or guitars, and turning the priest around as if he were an entertainer on the altar “stage”.  

I definitely like some aspects of the new Mass. The variety of Bible readings is excellent - we end up reading a whole lot more of the Bible over the course of three year cycle than three years with the old rite. I also like that the readings/Gospel are in English. The Latin mass does them both in Latin and English which is too time-consuming and repetitive. 

I’m starting to wonder if the sweet spot is Holy Family Columbus where they do a kind of hybrid: maintaining the elegance and reverence of the Latin Mass (including the Gloria in Latin) and the good features of the new Mass. 

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Interesting tweet sighted:

"Listened to Mozart 41 vs falling asleep during nap time today. Music perhaps only thing as enjoyable at 74 as at 18. Food, liquor, sex, human company not as much."

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Listened to a Bill Cunningham podcast with author of “Woke, Inc” about how big business went woke in the wake of the financial crisis of ’08. The “Occupy Wall Street” effort really spooked companies and they decided to try to change the subject from CEO salaries to diversity and inclusion since the latter was far easier - all symbolic and trivial, put a few people of color on the Board, etc...

I downloaded the first chapters of Woke, Inc. I read in the sun, in mid-backyard now that September has shrunk the light’s patchwork, and dozed off because nothing is more reassuring than the world is going to hell in a hand basket. It makes my work difficulties look trivial by comparison. 

Listened to Patrick Coffin podcast, and this Catholic is bold. And un-shameable. Edges as close as possible to Alex Jones and Taylor Marshall territory without ever transgressing that line.

Has invited Milo on and now the founder of the “Proud Boys”. Set up a conference against the vaccines for which YouTube banned him. 

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From Old Farmer’s Almanac:  “It is so deep in summer now / The pasture bars are almost hid In daisies, where I call my cow / And listen to the katydid.” -Anna Boynton Averill

Another selection from Old Farmer’s: 

"Every year I remember to do so, I plant a row of sunflowers in my vegetable patch; and every year I forget, I miss them. The sunflower is one of the flowers that every garden should by no means be without. I understand there are 70 species of sunflower (genus Helianthus), perennials and annuals, wild and cultivated, some grown for crops, most for fun. Some of the perennials are demure and well-mannered flowers. They do not interest me. I like the big, loud annuals that produce flowers the size of dinner plates, having raggedy, butter-yellow petals and fat, bulging centers. These flowers are essential because of their high spirits and because the sunflower is all flowers, the epitome. There is something touching about the sunflower as well, something to do with its famous turning after the Sun. You can see its heavy flowerhead bend on its stalk to follow the Sun through its daily arc. That faithful, mechanical movement has a sadness: Its faint sorrow marks the passing summer. Especially at this time of year, the Sun it watches is going away unmistakably farther each day, and where it’s going, the rooted sunflower can’t follow."

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Alex Marlow, married to a doctor and editor at Breitbart News, got the jab. Mildly surprising since he’s young and fit and would not to be at much risk. Obviously he knows a lot of medical people. He reports:

“Those same [medical] people who I trust in my life who have been giving me really solid information do like the mRNA vaccines better....And they are 100% convinced that Delta won’t be the worst variant, that this will be around for a long time, and some of the variants will be worse. Many of them believe it is made in China, needless to say, and that is partially why this stuff could be this bad, and why it is be so unpredictable, and anything that could help potentially reduce the virus load if we do get worse variants, that could be a good thing.”

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Interesting paragraph in new book on covid by Catholic author Philip Lawler: 

“You’ve been encouraged to wear a mask for the sake of others, though, on the theory that you might be infected without knowing it, and thus you could pass along the virus to others. In our scenario [that everyone will get it] this logic is questionable, too. If everyone is doomed to catch Covid sooner or later, how much should you sacrifice to postpone someone else’s day of reckoning? For the vast majority, a bout with Covid will be an inconvenience. Does that sound insensitive? Bear in mind that most of the people who contract the virus will experience no noteworthy symptoms. Granted, others will suffer though something more than just an ordinary “inconvenience.” But you can’t prevent that.... Needless to say, you don’t want to be responsible for a neighbor’s untimely death. Now wait; let’s take a careful look at the ground we’ve just covered. What is an “untimely” death, in this context or any other? (Is there ever such a thing as a “timely” death?) We shall all face death; we just don’t know when. “Watch, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour,” Jesus warns us (Matt. 25:13). Catholics boldly proclaim that every human being has the right to life. But no one has a “right” to escape death. We cannot protect our neighbors from the prospect of death by natural causes, and disease is a natural cause. Of course we avoid actions that would be likely to spread disease, and so responsible people stay home when they are sick. But we cannot eliminate every possible avenue of infection. As long as people live with others, some disease will spread and for some, the disease will be fatal.”