I am completely confident in my decision to become a Catholic and will happily write what I hope to be encouraging posts about the theology underlying my decision and the joy I experience at being a Catholic and many other topics including issues in apologia of my move.
John Paul II quoting from several verses of Genesis spoke of the Divine creative action of the Holy Spirit and said: "...in the account of the Creation, the way in which man was created suggests a relationship with the spirit or 'breath' of God. And one reads that after having created man from the dust of the earth, the Lord God "breathed life into his nostrils and man became a living soul".
The Holy Scriptures thereby make clear that God intervened by means of His breath of life or Spirit to make man a living soul. In man there is the "breath of life" which came from the "breath" of God Himself. In him lives breath which is similar to the very breath of God.
Then the Pontiff spoke of the creation of the animals and said: "In Genesis, Chapter 2, where there is reference to the creation of the animals, there is not given a similar account of their relationship with the divine spirit of God as is given of that relationship with man. From the previous chapter we learn that "Man was created in the image and likeness of God".
"However, other texts state that animals have the breath of life and were given it by God. In this respect man, created by the hand of God, is identical with all other living creatures. And so in Psalm 103* there is no distinction between man and beasts when it reads, addressing God: "...These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat** in due course. That thou givest them, they gather: thou openest thy hand, they are filled with good."
The psalmist continues: "Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth." The existence therefore of all living creatures depends on the living spirit/breath of God that not only creates but also sustains and renews the face of the earth."
This affirmation of the Pontiff has aroused enormous interest the world over and has overjoyed many thousands of Catholics who for many years have been deeply concerned that the Church should reiterate and give back to animals the proper respect and moral dignity due to the animal world which is often discriminated against and long been considered inferior to that of men.
"This discourse by Pope Wojtyla is very important and significant" explains the distinguished theologian Carlo Molari who for many years has been Professor of Theology and Dogma at the University of Urbino. "It is a 'sign of the times' because it demonstrates the Church's desire and deep concern to clarify present confused thinking and attitudes towards the animal kingdom. There should be no need, but the Pontiff in reiterating that the animals came into being because of the direct action of the "breath" of God wanted to say that also these creatures as well as man are possessed of the divine spark of life and that living quality that is the soul. And are therefore not inferior beings or only of a purely material reality."
TRANSCENDENT BEINGS
"If one goes on to contemplate that the word "animal" is derived from that of 'anima' or soul, one understands, as the Pope explains, that animals are indeed "touched" by the first principle of life which is the Holy Spirit. But the intention of the Pope when he defines the animals as being composed of both body and soul is not only meant to convey their value in a metaphysical sense, but above all also in a moral sense specifically that we must respect all the creatures of God. Clearly therefore because the animal possesses the same "breath" of life as man, men must demonstrate proper and total solidarity with the creatures that surround him. He must keep in his mind that there is an animal life around him and at the same time must try to love and respect it. And perhaps the profound and true message of the Pontiff is that we must live in close harmony, and with love towards animals and all of nature surrounding us."
Some people know they're on vacation when they're spread out on a poolside lounger drinking a pineapple cocktail. I know I'm on vacation when I'm huddled behind some bushes, hiding from my kids, so I can smoke a cigarette in the middle of the day. I like to smoke on vacation because it's the only thing that really distinguishes a vacation from any other day of breaking up fights and wiping bottoms, albeit in a different location. - Betty Duffy
Gasoline`s in short supplyWell, this post's title is a misnomer because nothing in this post speaks of a necessity, nothing that is needed to "just get by". But one thing I'm surprised by is how we as a society have gotten so used to the idea of monthly charges. It leads to chronic underestimation of the true cost of things like iPhones, cell phones, cable television, satellite radio (although there is a lifetime plan), and other modern technologies. (One of the attractions of the Kindle for me was that there was no monthly charge.)
The risin` cost of gettin` by... - Don Williams song
"The phone cost is the least significant factor. Whether the 8GB iPhone sells for $200 or $400 subsidized or $400 or $800 unsubsidized only minimally affects your other out of pocket costs over two years."Indeed the cost of a minimal plan over 2 years is $1440, not counting taxes and incidentals like a case, charger, etc...Pretty soon that adds up to real money. Just like with the federal government a billion here, a billion there starts to add up.
Occasionally (only occasionally), baseball is played when it's meant to be played - during the day - and sometimes I'll wander over to the ol' ball orchard on those days and take in a few innings of our minor league club the Columbus Clippers.
I decided to read Little Dorrit four ways: paperback, audiobook, Kindle, and iPhone.
It was often maddening to keep finding and losing my place as I switched from format to format. But as an experiment, it taught me a great deal about my reading habits, and about how a text reveals itself differently as the reading context changes. Along the way, I also began to make some predictions about winners and losers in the evolution of books.
Little Dorrit was an accidental choice, but I could hardly have done better. Its length, multiple story lines, 19th-century allusions, and teeming cast of characters helped me to test the functionality of different formats. Beyond the artifice of my reading experiment, though, please don't think that technology compromised my ability to appreciate this beloved novel, written in 1857 at the height of Dickens's power and popularity. Just the opposite.
I started with the paperback, reading in bed. "Thirty years ago, Marseilles lay burning in the sun. ..." As soon as I opened the book, there I was, encountering my name and my own marginal notations — "Sunshine that illuminates or blinds?" — from decades ago. That and the $2.45 price marked on the back made me more than a little nostalgic about my graduate-school days, when I first fell in love with the Victorian novel. In a book about how the present is haunted by the past, I was confronting my old self through the medium of the physical book, still in great condition, still fitting perfectly in my hands. How dare we think that anything could replace it? Impossible to imagine that any of these newfangled devices could last nearly 40 years. The perfume of old paper filled the air.
I could've stopped there.
It’s been about ten years since I’ve read Middlemarch — one of the two greatest English novels, the other being Bleak House, if you want to know — which means that it’s time to re-read it. All I had to do was decide what the delivery vehicle would be.I have a Penguin Classics paperback, with a nice font and good notes. I have a recent Everyman’s Library edition, which seems to be photo-offset from an old two-volume edition. Nice hard covers and a silk bookmark. I have an old Oxford World’s Classics hardcover — small (4x6 inches) and blue, with very slightly yellowed pages — I picked up in Hay-on-Wye some years ago. I had a Project Gutenberg version on my Kindle until I lost my Kindle, but I still have it available on my iPhone. (I could use the Kindle iPhone app or Stanza.) And I could read it on my laptop, say with the Gutenberg text and Readability.
This was actually an easy call for me. Want to guess which one I chose?
"Every nation has evolved its own kind of relaxation. Germany's relaxation is packed with trips, drinking, and regrets. America's doesn't exist. In the States, they even invented rocking chairs, so you can keep moving while you're sitting still. France's relaxation is languid. Britain's is deceptive. There are always minds at work in the English and Scottish countryside, even if there is no Wodehouse or Waugh to describe them...
A beach in Italy is not just a prelude to the sea...it is a catwalk, a gallery, a gym, a track, a restaurant, a market, a workshop, a sauna, a reading room, a place of meditation...It's a crowded space where some people go to be on their own. It's a theater of familial self-sufficiency." - Beppe Severgnini "La Bella Figura"
I want to start a novel in a meeting just to say I started a novel in a meeting. And what better time could there be? It's an environment made for all sorts of projects: novel-writing, novel-gazing, improving ones penmanship, sketching the skyline of New York, checking the tread on your shoes.
Meetings offer a boredom level rarely seen in daily life. It's a flavor of boredom that is extraordinarly rich but, paradoxically, not in the least excrutiating. Indeed it is almost pleasant. Like love, it is a place where reason can rest.
Various satisfactions attend me, like coffee, warm as a woman's bosom, along with the familiar rising and falling of familiar voices. There is even inspiration.
"Any questions?" our moderator asks after each speaker despite the fact that there's never been a question in any staff meeting, at least that I can recall, except for the ones I throw in for comic relief. Frankly, the lack of questions bothers me, seeming as it does an unanswered call, a missed opportunity.
"Who won the Belmont?" I ask Nancy, and after receiving the answer from Brian I apologize for the question's non-relevance.
The moderator smiles and forgives me and later again asks the question "Any questions?" (which I figure ought count as a question). Time after time, he asks it, with the patience of Job. It's a God-like expression of hope, that this time there will be a question, that this time someone was actually listening. I walk away a new man.
Click to enlarge. Source here.
