Various

I never see In Conversation with God and not momentarily confuse it with the '90s hit Conversations with God. Very different conversations.

Haven't read this Calvin & industrial revolution post yet, but it looks interesting. If I had more of that Protestant work ethic I might actually read it.

There's something pathetically hilarious about this email offer:
Last Minute Gifts Ideas from BatteryMart.com

Must I be a curmudgeon? Yes I must. New biblezine via Amy Welborn. What does one notice? Well, numbers. Lots of numbers. 25, 35 and 70+. Everybody likes formulas & surefire scientific methods and numbers convey that. The word "secrets" grabs one's attention because everyone's a closet gnostic these days. "Guys" in bold print. No surprise, the opp sex sells. "Radical". Because traditional is old, and old is bad. "New!" (see previous).

Someone should start a betting pool: will Jonah Goldberg or Mark Shea first publish their long-awaited books? Goldberg is writing about the Progressive Era and Shea a book about Mary.

Humbling...

Through the Bloglands^*

In the beginning, there were 1s and 0s, on and offs, bytes blaring their clarity like the trumpets of Jericho. Strung together they represented a single character, neutral in itself, a symbol of sounds or notes: "Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. When you read you begin with A, B, C." The characters arranged formed a word, which conveyed meaning, and the words formed sentences, conveying more meaning.

And meaning they did -- oh how glorious was that first website! Like a large net it caught all manner of word, their backs gleaming like marlin under the sun. There were jokes, asides, photos, boasts, poems, quotes, Hibernianisms, Romanisms, Holy Writ, evocations of trips, juvenilia and paraphernalia. Basking in the daring public privacy of anonymity I swam like a dolphin through the sea-tossed bits and bytes and 1s and 0s. I liked riddles and hidden doors, so I created nearly unmarked links leading to arched garden paths which in turn led to Poe's poems, linkways discernible only to the most observant which would likely only be me: "It was many and many a year ago / In a kingdom by the sea / that a maiden there lived whom you may know / By the name of Annabel Lee."

But was it good that man should be alone and his words unshared? If God should take a rib while I wrote I'd not object, and I pseudonymously added my URL to a high school alumni list. Keen was the shock when my identity was uncovered, a fellow grad emailed asking, "are you Stephen Colbert?" by the clues I'd left concerning my name. Vanity thy name is writer! I could not tell a lie and hoped that the forceful ringtones of the gospel didn't turn her off, and truth be told there were visions of conversions dancing in my head.

I soon happened across - I know not how - the web of a stranger (an heir to Belloc) which was updated often and I fed on it, checked it daily, liked the liveliness of it, her capacity to surprise and the fresh, born-on dating aspect of it. She called it a "blog", an immediate turn-off, for I distrusted any newly coined words that I hadn't coined, thinking them otherwise trendy and I loathed all things trendy.

She responded to my query explaining that "blog" was a contraction of "web" and "log" and I felt better about it, seeing how two proper Anglo-Saxon words had mated and likely married first. She told me it was reading Andrew Sullivan's blog that inspired her to start her own, and she, in turn, became my own blogmère.

Soon after I met (virtually) a poet and an engineer. The poet spoke of love and dark nights while the engineer spoke of knowledge and the Cross. How to marry the heart of the poet and the mind of the engineer? ? ...
___

* - self-indulgent post alert!

Premature Giftulation?

In the annals of blogdom this post might rank with the most trivial, but my wife recently bought me a Christmas present that she can't wait to give me. She says it's the best ever and that I'll never guess what it is and I can really use it and.... She wanted to give it to me immediately, but I refused, traditionalist that I am. (When we were first married, in '99, we always seemed to give gifts weeks ahead of the birthday or event, so I suppose it's semi-traditional to give early.) But I said: "We have to wait till Christmas!" I have the proverbial mixed emotions because who wants to spoil or delay the joy of the giver? On the other hand, shouldn't we recall that gift-giving is about celebrating Jesus's birthday and thus should be on Christmas? On the third hand, how linked is gift-giving with Jesus anyway these days? Ponderous. Trivial, but ponderous.

Free Books!



Tom got me in the Christmas spirit with his book offer. (Our Lady and the Church looks especially interesting.)

Similarly inspired, anyone interested in John Meehan's Two Towers from Requiem Press need only email me for a free copy. Offer good through Dec. 23rd or funds depleted, whichever comes first!

More info about the book here and here.

Want to Get This in the Archives

Or better yet I should put it on my sidebar. This is remarkable - perhaps the world's largest digital image on the web?

Here are a few amazing details:

An Examined Life...

...examines the Fall, and compares and contrasts Orthodox & Catholic views concerning Original Sin.

Putting aside the useless ideas of Calvin and the antiquated ideas of the Thirty-nine Articles, we are left with those aspects of Augustinianism that are alleged to be a part of the Magisterium. It seems to me that there is very little, if anything, in [Orthodox] Bishop Ware's account of Original Sin that I, myself, disagree with, and I find myself wondering what it is, precisely, that he has in mind here, other than the traces of Augustinianism that are undeniably a part of many a theological Weltanschauung, when he writes that east and west do not entirely concur on the doctrine.

Powerful Antidote

It would seem today's First Reading is an antidote to two of the most prevalent views of God today: 1) that He is distant and aloof ("We are all living in an atmosphere of deism." - Cardinal Ratzinger) or 2) that He is loving but ineffective:

Isaiah 40:25 - 31

‘To whom could you liken me
and who could be my equal?’ says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high
and see who has created these things:
He leads out their army and numbers them,
calling them all by name.
By his great might and the strength of his power
not one of them is missing!
Why, O Jacob, do you say,
and declare, O Israel,
'My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my right is disregarded by my God?'

Did you not know?
Had you not heard?

The Lord is an everlasting God,
he created the boundaries of the earth.
He does not grow tired or weary,
his understanding is beyond fathoming.
He gives strength to the wearied,
he strengthens the powerless.
Young men may grow tired and weary,
youths may stumble,
but those who hope in the Lord renew their strength,
they put out wings like eagles.
They run and do not grow weary,
walk and never tire.

Deja Vu

"Calling George Bush shallow is like calling a dwarf short...Part of Bush's problem is that he is not a well-educated man - he just went to good schools." - Molly Ivins

"George Bush's success in leading the American public into war might never have been possible without the energetic cooperation of the punditocracy." - Eric Alterman

"Bush has been so clumsy in advancing his case [for war] as to nearly have discredited it." - Charles Krauthammer

All of the above refer to George Bush the Elder, #41.

Islam Fatigue?

From a Nicholas Kristof column:

After I wrote recently about reform elements in Islam, I received a long note from a 24-year old Chicagoan, Paul Williams, who ventured what many people feel: "I went to school in Macalester College and the whole time there I wrote paper after paper defending Islam," he told me. Now, he says, after reading the Quran cover to cover and living in Turkey, he has lapsed into political incorrectness. "The more I'm here the more I'm beginning to think that there's just something wrong with Islam," he said.

Blog Coach Tells Team to 'Blog One for the Gipper'

<- Coach McNally with oddly clad blogger

MADISON, WI--Personal blogging trainer/coach John McNally gathered his proteges and urged them to "blog one for the Gipper".

"I want to see you tackle those arguments, blast through that porous MSM line, go to your adverbs when your main verbs are covered. Remember the fundamentals, men! Noun, verb, noun! Don't get fancy out there.

"Think about how all those readers up in the stands are cheering for you and would like to be you right now. Well, they're all bloggers too, but you get the idea. Attention to detail! Use that ABC up there, that spell checker. The ref might still blow a whistle but one of the keys to victory is limiting penalties. I want to start the half with a XYZ-Carmeli slant pass to Riddle with an option 30WideDomni to Kreitz. And I want to see more pet posts this half! Don't leave Max as a 'saved draft'.

"So blog, men! Blog for the shut-ins. Blog for the neighbor who is too busy to blog. Blog for those who through no fault of their own lack opinions or the ability to air them!"

Honest Listener

I blogged the other day about how I was blown away in the late '90s by then-Cardinal Ratzinger's honesty, but I think Amy Welborn puts it well today, how he seems more honest because he perceives the root problems:

One of the points that Michael makes about [Pope] Benedict is this: One of his qualities that really sets him apart, that really lends power to his words is that he gets what the problems are. It's sort of amazing, and it's something that has struck me from the homily at his inauguration Mass, when he spoke of the "deserts" of contemporary life. He gets the big picture. He sees the problems on the ground.

And perhaps not every one of us would agree with every one of his assessments or solutions. But you have to admit that he's not making stuff up. He's not operating out of a disengaged idealism or a concern about presenting a nice picture of life on the ground so we can look good. It confirms what those who know him have said: he's a listener.

Open Thread

Chat away!

Things Political

From the Washington Post!!:

The contrast between Cuba and Chile more than 30 years after Mr. Pinochet's coup is a reminder of a famous essay written by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, the provocative and energetic scholar and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who died Thursday. In "Dictatorships and Double Standards," a work that caught the eye of President Ronald Reagan, Ms. Kirkpatrick argued that right-wing dictators such as Mr. Pinochet were ultimately less malign than communist rulers, in part because their regimes were more likely to pave the way for liberal democracies. She, too, was vilified by the left. Yet by now it should be obvious: She was right.

Over at The Corner, Charles Murray says: "Milton Friedman was right: You can't have both open immigration and a welfare state. The tension between the two is inescapable."

It's way too early but...it looks like the vote I'll cast in the '08 Republican Primary will likely be the most unenthusiastic primary vote ever in my history. Brownback can't win (and besides he's no Alan Keyes anyway). The only ones who have a shot at beating Hillary or Obama are Guilliani, McCain & Romney. Maybe Southern governor Huckabee, but I've heard he's a tax lover/hiker. I'm leaning McCain. He says he's pro-life and he seems more legitmately pro-life than Romney, who's flipped flop now three times on the issue. But McCain is a maverick, and we've had enough maverickism lately (at least foreign policy-wise). He wants to send more troops to Iraq, which is a complete head-scratcher. Wouldn't it secure Baghdad only as long as those troops were there? I should read his explanation, maybe it'll make sense. Regardless, the McCain-Feingold thing was a joke. He seems like a decent guy if he didn't have these hobbyhorses. If you have hobbyhorses you should at least have the decency to be right about them, and McCain seems to be wrong an awful lot. But I'll probably hold my nose.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Meditation from The Word Among Us:

One of the most amazing truths that we are celebrating this Advent is the simple statement that God wants to dwell among his people. It’s a desire of his that echoes through the Scriptures and throughout all of salvation history. The prophets and angelic messengers in Scriptures often reminded God’s people of this foundational truth, and every saint who has come after them testifies to it in his or her life. So why is it that we can feel alone at times—and even more so as the holidays approach?

At Guadalupe, Mary asked St. Juan Diego: Am I not with you, I who am your mother? While the words at first seem to be a simple message of comfort and encouragement, Mary was also communicating something far more important for the whole church: Each of us is a part of the people of God! In her special role as mother of the church, Mary is telling us what each and every saint in heaven longs for us to grasp—we are not alone! When God sent Mary tell this to the native Americans in Mexico, his love reached through cultural and historical barriers to speak to his people in a language they could understand.

What about us? No matter where we live, no matter what our family history, we are part of God’s family, with very real connections to heaven. The entire heavenly chorus claims us as their own and rejoices whenever we claim them as our own. We are bound to one another, simply because we are all bound to Christ in baptism. Secure in our heritage, we can walk with our heads held high, knowing that we are children of heaven. We are part of a huge spiritual family!