Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of Posts

I taught the class about lectio divina and then had each student choose a passage to pray. Afterwards we had a discussion about any insights. One guy chooses the agony in the garden and he pointed out how many of the elements of the "Our Father" can be seen in the garden. 1) "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by Thy name" = Jesus prays, "Thy will be done." 2) "Give us this day our daily bread" = Jesus = Jesus sweats blood and is about to offer his body 3) "and forgive us our tresspasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us" = Jesus heals the ear of the soldier 4) "and lead us not into temptation" = Jesus says "pray that you will not fall into temptation." 5) deliver us from evil = I don't know :) Pretty cool, I thought. - Paul Herboth on Facebook

In summer, too, Canute-like; sitting here, one is often reminded of the sea. For not only do long groundswells roll the slanting grain and little wavelets of the grass rippple over upon the low piazza, as their beach, and the blown down of dandelions is wafted like the spray, and the purple of the mountains is just the purple of billows, and a still August noon broods upon the deep meadows, as a calm upon the Line; but the vastness and lonesomeness are so oceanic, and the silence and the sameness, too, that the first peep of a strange house, rising beyond the trees, is for all the world like spying, on the Barbary Coast, an unknown sail. - From "The Piazza" by Melville via Steven Riddle's "A Momentary Taste of Being" blog

My favourite was: "Don't give anyone unsolicited advice, because it's never listened to, anyway." The irony, of course, is that the above comment was some unsolicited advice, which was also not listened to. EP countered immediately: "Let's thank God for real friends, who give unsolicited advice to us because they care that we're ruining ourselves!" - Sancta Sanctis

The original sin of health care coverage was making health insurance you get through your job excludable from taxation...it means that none of us are concerned by expenses...or are only by (1 - the tax rate). - Commentator on "Uncommon Knowledge"

Get your laws off our sacraments - Title of Bill White post concerning governmental claim of authority over marriage

I think that seeing people in modest period dress in Church, while vaguely edifying maybe, makes it seem as if Catholicism is a throwback that has no application in the modern world. As if there's just no way to be holy in modern clothes, which I know is not true. Didn't St. Francis de Sales say that he would have Christians the best-dressed people in a room? Anyway, people who wear prairie dresses for modesty's sake tend to forget how tightly fitted the actually dresses from the 1880's were. Remember how tightly Mary has to lace her corset to get her dress to fit properly? People didn't start wearing this baggy shapeless stuff until the flapper era, and then it was short….I think we can safely say that it's an offense against God to wear something that's an offense against both beauty and truth. - - Mr. Darwin on Betty Duffy's blog

It's hard to imagine Mel Gibson saying that sober. - Terrence Berres, on a Vox Nova anti-Israel blog post

Cold beer is bottled God...My tongue, for all the ice-cold God I drink, is hot as a camel-saddle sandily mounted by baked Bedouins. - Dylan Thomas, The Collected Letters, via Dylan of "dark speech"

Have children. Because as you get older you’ll see, in abashed humility (because of all the things you did wrong in their raising) that the most important, coolest thing you have ever done in your life is play whatever part God has graced you to play in setting interesting new people loose in God’s world. Everything else pales. And this reason has nothing to do with your legacy or your name or your physical desires to be a mommy or daddy or your unfulfilled dreams or wishes. These children will someday leave you in the dust. Literally. It’s about the gift of them – not to you, even, but to God and God’s world - Amy Welborn

Walking in the woods..the kids point the [remarkable fungi] out: “There’s a red one! That one’s yellow! This one is pure white. I think I’ll name it the Baptism mushroom.” Yes, my good, pious children name mushrooms after Sacraments. - Betty Duffy

There was that feeling - at least there was when all of this was new to us - of opening our eyes and then realizing 'I get to go down to the paper again today.' Like when you fall in love for the first time, and you blink to wakefulness in the throes of that new love and, even in your grogginess, you know without knowing why that this is going to be another good day. 'I get to go down to the paper again today.' - Bob Greene in "Late Edition" on his early newspaper career

Martyrs & Object Constancy

Today we ponder the amazing stories of the North American martyrs, or our Canadian martyrs (as our Canadian brothers and sisters call them).

Reading the stories you realize how absolutely secure they must've felt in God's love to endure such torture.

In the normal course of human development, that sort of security takes time. In the book Boundaries, the authors explore the principle:

The ultimate goal of mother's 'being there' [for her child] is a state called emotional object constancy. Object constancy refers to the child's having an internal sense of belonging and safety, even away from the presence of the mother. All those experiences of constant loving pay off in a child's inner sense of security. It's been built in. Object constancy is referred to in the Bible as 'being rooted and established in love' (Eph. 3:17) and as having been 'rooted and built up in [Christ]' (Col. 2:7). It illustrates the principle that God's plan for us is to be loved enough by him and others, to not feel isolated - even when we're alone.

An aside: the authors Cloud & Townsend see the boyhood incident of Christ leaving Mary & Joseph for the Temple as a part of the natural separation-individuation process: "'I have values, thoughts, and opinions that are different from yours, Mother.' Jesus knew who he was not, as well as who he was."

Put Not Your Trust in Princes or Sports Teams

Loss by the OSU Buckeyes to unranked Purdue drew this sad face from a fellow fan:

Reminds me of that American Indian with a tear in the old '70s-era commercial.

Nakedness

Read a bit of Mother Angelica's book on Scripture and got to thinking: Adam hid himself, hid his nakedness, but the nakedness wasn't about sex as it was about vulnerability. If one substitutes that word we have God saying, when Adam covered his privates, "Who told you that you were vulnerable?". In other words, when we are in deep relationship with God we feel invulnerable. When we sin, we see how vulnerable we are to God's judgment. "The first sign of disobedience to God's will is fear," says Mother Angelica. I thought of how Jesus was naked on the cross, how he was made vulnerable because he'd taken on our sin. The bad fruit that we'd ingested he ingested too, like second-hand smoke.

Weekend Musings

Hiked along a stone wall with green moss covering the top and a few sharp stones jutting up like Irish ruins. The scene reminded me of those stone fences in Ireland, and the dark green ivy nearby recalled a friend's grandmother's house on "ancient" Beninghoffen drive, at least it seemed ancient to me back when I was there.

The homes near the hiking path reminded me of the quaint old house of a family friend of long ago. In my mind's eye I see their dwelling as small even by 1975 standards and I see, accurately or not, it made of stone with an arched door, like something out of Frodo's village in Lord of the Rings.

Hamilton may have been right next door to Fairfield but in many ways it seemed quite foreign. Older, more urban, much different architecture, with a large river running through it. For me, Hamilton was olde Europe and Fairfield was young America. The Miami river even looked like the Rhine or Danube in my mind's eye. There were monuments, like the power house, which was Hamilton's version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. There was the old Lane library, looking like a library should - full of history and quiet. The Billy Yank statue was Hamilton's Eiffel Tower.

_____
Somewhat sheepishly, returned E.E. Cummings book to Aeropagitica bookshop. I like the bookstore in part because of the name, it's Greek and nearly unpronounceable - how's that for counter-cultural anti-branding? I made sure to tell the owner I was keeping the other two books, since otherwise I'd feel ridiculous in not supporting a local bookshop. I made it worse by asking how much the slim volume of poetry by M.C. Escher was; she said that because they were trying to support a local poetry publishing house it was full price, $14.95. I balked; it's hard to support an unknown publishing house when I wasn't even supporting too well this semi-local bookshop with the odd name.

If the incense at church spurs a desire to pray, by the power of association, the smell of old books prompts the desire to read. This shop had a wonderful old German book called something like Deutscher Jugendfreund, German Young Friend I think, and I took a picture of the cover with my cellphone:

I page through a book of the best of May Sarton and come to a passage criticizing T.S. Eliot. She thought him too stern, lacking the sensibility of the gospel as "good news", and she blamed it on the fact during the '20s no one wanted to hear any good news, the decade being especially grim, coming right on the heels of the optimism-crushing Great War.

Justice & Mercy

A recent moment of Zen: long I've reflected on the Old Testament line about how "justice and mercy shall kiss" and how that would occur with the Parousia. But then like a bolt I realized it's alread happened in Christ; justice being the necessity that our sins be paid for and mercy being that God Himself, Jesus, pays the price for those sins.

From the Word Among Us:

"The extent that we believe in [the gospel] and lay hold of it is the extent to which its power can work through us. The choice is ours: We can be content that our sins are forgiven, or we can become ambassadors for Christ and begin using our gifts to transform society."

Buddy the Wonder Dog

For Enbrethiliel : God & Dog

Ponderables

Another bleak week weather-wise, full of cold & sturm, wind and drang. Highs in the low 40s, pure November in mid-October. A cold summer followed by a cold autumn...

So it's Friday and I'm lit and writ starved. I'm famished for the ravishment of print, in this case Peter Matthiessen's novel Shadow Country but also for spiritual reading like Mother A's book on Scripture. Instead I write about it. Go figure. The CTS Bible arrived in the mail yesterday and it's goose-bump city even if the print is a bit small for middle-aged eyes. But it's a keeper. Jerusalem version with notes and the Grail Psalms - don't have any Bible like it. (I'm starting to feel like the Steven Riddle of Bible collecting even though I'm still a long way from his total.) The bible I actually use the most seems to be The Catholic Comparative New Testament, which has no less than eight parallel translations. It makes St. Paul's writings clearer when one reads multiple versions of the same verse. (Note to self: tell Mom that.)
_____
Water aerobics has been much more colorful than usual lately. A man in his mid-30s has been wearing a woman's bikini the last four to six weeks. It's caused, as you might imagine, much controversy and talk; suddenly my own presence has become passe. My wife reports that the girls in the lockerroom no longer sigh and say, "if only my husband came with me to water aerobics!", instead they say, "what is with that guy in the bikini?!" as well they might. I think he "loves to shock us" as Letterman said of Madonna. Perhaps the proof is in that he's stepping up his game, no longer satisfied with the mere bikini, he now stuffs the top and wears a wig. Our aerobics instructor cagily think he's angling for a lawsuit against the club, hoping he gets tossed. "Follow the money," they say, but I'd have never thought of that. I thought he was a cross-dresser/exhibitionist, and where else can you wear a bikini if you're a guy in cold Central Ohio? He's hairy, i.e doesn't shave his chest, and appears to be making no moves towards "becoming" a female. Your guess. is as good as mine. He says he'd like to change in the woman's lockerroom given all the hostile stares he gets in the men's, but heck what red-blooded American male wouldn't rather get dressed in the woman's lockerroom? But I digress.
_____
I feel about the Netbook the way I felt about the invention of the fountain pen. Well, okay I wasn't around for that. But I do feel this ability to write anywhere is something very cool. My typing is so much faster than my longhand. Plus I don't have to later transcribe it. The sudden new access to my journal reminds me of the thrill I experienced when I got my first PC in June of '98. Or at least that's when I started my journal.

I'm surrounded by my coterie of books. The floors are full-lit of light, amber wood, reflecting much of the incandescence it took to overcome the effects of "dark October", to coin a phrase. The books all smell like fine Rieslings, an aperitif of print and goo, or glue, and I stack them nearby like a rich man might his money. I count them and catalog them, inhale them, read them, write of them.

It seems unreal that so short a time ago I could read outside in a t-shirt, the sun radiating down as if it were the most brightly lit interior ever seen. I like the occasional gray day, it being restorative and restful, and for the muting effect has on extroverts. 'It's not so bad,' I think, in my warm house, playing netbook and drinking a Spaten Dark.

The thing I have to guard against, the great evil (or boll weevil) is television. That must be put off till 9 or 9:30. Must write, read & pray until that point. That's at least two hours a night, two hours that are easily frittered away. The summer discipline was to read out on the back patio - the non-accessibility of the television seemed to help.

I remind myself that Kindle, Netbook, sat radio - it's all extraneous and possibly distracting from the true goal in life: holiness, not momentary happiness. Even now there's the temptation to think that there are other things out there that I'm missing out on, like the iPhone, or the Kindle DX (and a Wall Str Journal subscription) or MLB on the 'net, or a new desktop or ...?

One can easily see how easy it is to allow wealth to corrupt - my goal early on was to save like crazy and then let the time value of money occur and relax as I got older. But the problem with "relaxing" is less that the money is being spent - than the effect on us. Not only does it raise our standard of living before going into the leaner retirement years, but more importantly it can take our "eyes off the prize", that is Christ. Because there's nothing we can buy that is as helpful to us as is prayer and almsgiving.
_____
So I was in line for Confession the other day and a pretty young girl with hair so dark as if it were dyed stood in front of me. Given our height differential, I could easily see over her shoulder as she wrote in her diary. I was torn between looking and not; I wasn't entirely sure what the etiquette is. If someone is writing in plain view then do they mind if I read it? Is it like a blog in other words? I saw words here and there "prayer", "soul" and then looked away.
_____
Thinking about the parable of the prodigal son it seems as though both sons, at least until the younger repented, were focused only on the material blessings their father could give them. And they both didn't know what they had in terms of both spiritual and temporal blessings. How like us!?
_____
Steven Riddle has been bloggishly fecund lately; he's a Semiteophile and I think the Jews got it right in starting their year in the early fall. Everything feels so new and perhaps that's part of why Steven is so inspired. I love the way he's enjoying Melville and Joyce and despite my protestations to the contrary, I secretly love the opacities of folks like the ones he mentions. Lord, give me Melville or Joyce over Eudora Welty any day. It reminds me of when I translated some of Hernan Gonzalez's stuff and how more than a few phrases were untranslatable and yet that lent it a more fragrant air. Nostalgically it recalls to me my youth in reading tomes far beyond me. I can have the same feeling reading Joyce or Faulkner today. I really don't even want to understand everything in a novel, much as I really don't want to understand God fully, as laughable as even to suggest that is. A little mystery is good for the soul and keeps one hungry for more. For me, one of the most enticing things about God is how he is infinitely knowledgeable. No matter how long we're in Heaven, if we should be so fortunate as to make it there, we'll always be growing in knowledge.

Random Thoughts

Schadenfreude alert: I'm feeling it for all the young people who voted for Obama who are going to have to pony up for health care. Let them make t-shirts: "I voted for Obama and all I got was higher health care premiums and a surge in Afghanistan". A bit wordy, I know. Would only fit on obese youngsters who no doubt will eventually be taxed punitively for their weight. Rue the irony. Sucks to be around when the empire's fallin' 'eh? (On the other hand, it may be better to be young than old when it's falling.)
____
Only in the la-la land of Big Gov't would it be logical to extend a huge government program (Medicare) via cuts in that huge federal program (i.e. the famous 'waste, fraud and abuse').
____
Proof that people my age are coming into media power arrives in dribs and drabs, like the fact that Fox & Friends played Cold as Ice by Foreigner and had the lead singer on the show. Two of the shows hosts are in their mid-40s. Then there's also the fact that there are two new best-selling books about the 1975 baseball season: Game Six, which is about the sixth game of the World Series, and The Machine about the Big Red Machine of that year. I'm figuring the two writers are in their mid-40s.
____
One of the things the Internet gives us is the ability to look at personal phrases and see if anybody else ever thought them. Such as the alliterative phrase if non-standard English "scrimping and scraving". Indeed they have.
____
Amy Welborn tweets/twitters: "Going to B&N for change of scenery." Ahh... I can picture retirement now: a netbook, Bob Evans, free Wi/Fi, and me writing and reading away while eating pumpkin pie*. Or at Barnes & Noble sipping a civilized cup of coffee and drinking in the bookish atmosphere.
____
Michelle Malkin called Ariana Huffington a "provocateur", which seems a bit like Bob Marley calling someone a pothead. Although in fairness to Michelle she's no Ann Coulter. I have to give credit to Ariana and some of the others on the left who are criticizing Obama for staying in Afghanistan. I figured the Left's anti-war talk would dry up like eczematic skin after Obama got elected.
____
I always recall Jeff Culbreath of "Stony Creek" linking to an article about how women wearing pants leads to more lust in men than those wearing skirts. I thought that was crazy talk - it seemed counterintuitive considering that skirts show more skin and the old saying goes "skin to win!". Certainly if the skirt is above the knees then they are more lust-inducing, but personal empirical evidence shows that indeed females wearing form-fitting pants (and what other kind are there?) are 57.2% more likely to induce lust.
____
* which reminds me of the ol' song John Anderson song (speaking of those in their mid-40s) Swingin':

There's a little girl, in our neighborhood.
Her name is Charlotte Johnson, and she's really lookin' good.
I had to go and see her, so I called her on the phone.
I walked over to her house, and this was goin' on.

Her brother was on the sofa, eatin' chocolate pie.
Momma was in the kitchen, cuttin' chicken up to fry.
Daddy was in the backyard, rollin' up a garden hose.
I was on the porch with Charlotte, feelin' love down to my toes.
and we were swingin' (swingin')
yes we were swingin' (swingin')

Little Charlotte she's as pretty as the angels when they sing.
I can't believe I'm out here on her front porch in this swing,
Just a swingin' (swingin')

PSA on Energy

Open letter to Sen. Sherrod Brown from a deacon (and geologist) at our church:

Dear Senator Brown,

I am writing you as a concerned constituent with over 20 years experience as an environmental scientist to express my opposition to H.R. 2454, the Markey-Waxman “cap & trade” climate bill.

In my opinion, H.R. 2454 (if passed) will result in significant damage to the U.S. economy while providing little (if any) reduction in the worldwide generation of greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide.

First, H.R. 2454 will place an additional regulatory burden (i.e., the price of carbon permits) on domestic energy producers, which will be passed directly to consumers through higher energy prices. For example, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) estimates that by 2015,this bill would increase the price of gasoline by 6 to 8%, the price of electricity by 2 to 5%, and the price of natural gas by 17 to 26%. By 2030 these increased energy costs rise even higher.

The added burden of such an “energy tax” on top of the local, state and federal taxes (that are virtually guaranteed to increase under the fiscal policies being promoted by the Obama administration) will stifle future economic growth and reduce the average American’s standard of living. Unfortunately, the increased energy costs will adversely impact the poorest Americans the hardest.

Second, the deleterious economic effects of H.R. 2454 will result in significant net job losses throughout the U.S. In Ohio alone, between 79,700 and 108,600 jobs may be lost due to lower industrial output, the costs of complying with required emissions costs, and greater competition from overseas manufacturers (with lower energy costs) associated with this bill (NAM). Further, credible sources indicate that the creation of so-called “green jobs” will not provide an adequate counterbalance to the job losses which will occur under H.R. 2454. Based on Spain’s attempt at creating “green jobs” through government funding (cited by President Obama as a model) an average of nine private-sector jobs will likely be lost for every four government-supported green jobs created in the United States (Study of the effects of employment on public aid to renewable energy sources, March 2009, G.C. Álvarez et al., Universidad Rey Juan Carlos).

Third, other major industrial countries including China, India and Russia appear to have no intention of cooperating with the United States in H.R. 2454’s effort to reduce carbon emissions.

If the United States Senate passes H.R. 2454 and other major industrial countries refuse or fail to reduce their carbon emissions, then as Americans all we will have achieved is placing yet another onerous regulatory burden on ourselves and our children. I agree that the U.S. should put forth an effort to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the environment. However, if any effort is to be successful, it must accommodate economic reality and be based on sound scientific reasoning and be grounded in common sense. There are far better alternatives to H.R. 2454. For example, if we increased our use of natural gas and nuclear power (both domestically available) to generate electricity while reducing our use of coal-generated electricity, we would significantly reduce future carbon dioxide emissions.

In closing, I urge you to vote against H.R. 2454. Thank you for your time and your consideration of my concerns as your constituent.

Sincerely,
Rev. Jeffrey W. Martin
B.S. Geology, M.S. Geology/Geophysics
Licensed Professional Geologist in Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania

UPDATE: Reply to our deacon from Sen. Brown:

Dear Reverend Martin:

Thank you for sharing your views about clean energy legislation.

Effective clean energy legislation will reduce climate pollution and promote the production of renewable energy—but most importantly it will ensure the creation of new clean energy jobs and industries. Clean energy legislation must also ensure the competitiveness of domestic manufacturers and protect consumers by keeping utility rates affordable. We must work to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by making America a global leader in clean energy manufacturing.

For this reason, I recently announced legislation called the Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology (IMPACT) Act. This legislation, which was included in the House energy bill, would support manufacturers' transition to the clean energy economy and ensure clean energy jobs are created here in the U.S. This legislation would create a revolving loan fund for small and medium size manufacturers to retool and expand facilities to produce clean energy technology and energy efficient products. It is estimated this measure will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

I appreciate hearing your input on this important topic. As clean energy legislation continues to be discussed in Congress, I will work to ensure that an unfair burden is not placed on Ohio families and businesses. I will only support legislation that creates new jobs and economic opportunities across Ohio .

Thank you again for writing.

Sincerely,

Sherrod Brown
United States Senator

List Thursday

From the Ray Bradbury book, his favorite writers:

Dickens, Twain, Wolfe, Peacock, Shaw, Moliere, Jonson, Wycherly, Sam Johnson

Favorite Poets:

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Dylan Thomas, Pope

Favorite Painters:

El Greco, Tintoretto

Favorite Musicians:

Mozart, Hayden, Ravel, Johann Strauss

Pretty decent lists...

Obama Prize

Word has it that Obama won the peace prize so that the Committee could preemptively tie his hands with respect to what he might do in Iraq and Afghanistan. But if that strategy worked then infant Baptism would've made a lot more saints.

Henry D. Thoreau's Rep

I read with surprise the charge of 19th century convert/intellectual Fr. Hecker that Thoreau was an egotistical popinjay. (Okay, I added the latter for sound effect; Hecker wrote in a letter to a friend of Thoreau's supreme arrogance and pridefulness.)

But when I read HDT, back some twenty years ago, I noticed no such thing. Of course I was faithfully reading the Sunday New York Times back then, so I was pretty much immune to arrogance and self-absorption, especially given my own similar traits.

I happened across the book Thoreau as Seen by His Contemporaries, opened at random and found these quotes:

"The lecture on Wednesday evening, was by H.D. Thoreau, Esq. of Concord, Mass. The subject announced in the papers as 'Home, or domestic economy,' but the real topic was 'Myself - I.'"

Hilarious.

A few months later another writes of another Thoreau lecture:

"[it] was a mingled web of sage conclusions and puerility - wit and egotistical effusions - bright scintillations and narrow criticisms and low comparisons."

But is this a case where no prophet is honored in his home country? If Thoreau was seen as arrogant then, history seems to have proven Thoreau's self-opinion as true given his place in the canon of American literature. Or perhaps it's merely that we're all self-absorbed and arrogant now, it's in the air we breathe, and so we don't notice it in Thoreau like his contemporaries did. Or perhaps most people in our age do think he's an arrogant eccentric cuss and I just wasn't aware of it.

Dumb Person's Guide to the Orchestra

So all these music players are sitting around in a half-oval, as if around an imaginary campfire that gives heat in one direction, and then all of a sudden another player comes out and sits way up in the middle front. And everyone applauds! I'm thinking geesh what a great gig - you show up late and everyone claps!

But he wasn't even the latest. This tall feller all dressed up like a penguin with a long black tail, he comes up and everyone claps even louder. Then he rushes off-stage, as if he forgot to go to the bathroom, and then re-appears quick-like and everyone claps all the more! I think he run off just because he wanted to get more applause so I withhold me own. Funniest thing is he didn't play no instrument! He was up there the whole time taking up space and waving a pretend magic wand.

After half-time, which I might add they had no entertainment whatever, no marching band, no cheerleaders, they rolled out this big piano for what they called a "soloist". And this itsy bitsy girl comes out and man do her fingers fly 'cross that keyboard! She could flat out play! Then she hushes the orchestra and plays a couple of tunes I ain't heard of but I thought it rude to make the orchestra just sit there while she goes on and on. I don't rightly know if she cleared it beforehand. Seemed like she was improvisin'.

She quit and everyone stood up to cheer her quittin', which I thought rude. I got out my lighter and held the flame aloft...

Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of Posts

Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize... this farce is not worthy of comment so instead I'll concentrate on the beautiful and the true. - Dymphna of "Dymphna's Road"

The Jesus Prayer [is] a tradition that goes back to the earliest days of the Church. This is typically my choice of meditation style... By using the Jesus Prayer, on the inhalation one says silently, "Oh my Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me," and on the long exhalation, "a sinner." Keep this constant rhythm of inhalation and exhalation, connecting word to breath. The mind will still wander, but when it does, return the focus back to the Jesus Prayer. Again, over time, the mind will begin to experience stillness. - Michael at Psalm 46:11

Choice is a tyrannical master, and my habitual choice to remain comfortable usually leaves me paddling my boat in inefficient circles. This is why I have ultimately become a struggling music appreciator rather than a struggling musician... I find recently that my faith in music, my faith in the written word—this idea that it is a matter of life and death for some people, including myself—is at times subject to doubt. I’m glad Fulton Sheen says [that it is a matter of life and death], and that you say so too, so I’m going to rest on the side of faith tonight. - Betty Duffy

Writers and poets are famous for loving to be in motion. If not running, hiking; if not hiking, walking. (Walking, even fast, is a poor second to running, as all runner know, that we'll resort to when our knees go, but at least it's an option.) The great English Romantic poets were clearly inspired by their long walks in all weather: Wordsworth and Coleridge in the idyllic Lake District, for instance; Shelley ("I always go until I am stopped and I never am stopped") in his four intense years in Italy...Both running and writing are highly addictive activities; both are, for me inextricably bound up consciousness. I can't recall a time when I wasn't running, and I can't recall a time when I wasn't writing. - from "The Faith of a Writer" by Joyce Carol Oates via Steven at "A Momentary Taste of Being"

In response to their question, “What is going to happen to my child? The child didn’t get baptized,” St. Bernard said, “Your faith spoke for this child. Baptism for this child was only delayed by time. Your faith suffices. The waters of your womb — were they not the waters of life for this child? Look at your tears. Are they not like the waters of baptism? Do not fear this. God’s ability to love is greater than our fears. Surrender everything to God.” - Darwin Catholic on miscarriage

[Early] Christian sages were fiercely dogmatic by any modern standard. They were not fundamentalists, reading every line of Scripture literally, and they were, as [Karen] Armstrong says, “inventive, fearless and confident in their interpretation of faith.” But their inventiveness was grounded in shared doctrines and constrained by shared assumptions. Their theology was reticent in its claims about the ultimate nature of God but very specific about how God had revealed himself on earth. It’s true that Augustine, for instance, did not interpret the early books of Genesis literally. But he certainly endorsed a literal reading of Jesus’ resurrection — and he wouldn’t have been much of a Christian theologian if he hadn’t. Which is to say that it’s considerably more difficult than Armstrong allows to separate thought from action, teaching from conduct, and dogma from practice in religious history. The dogmas tend to sustain the practices, and vice versa...a spiritually inclined person can no doubt draw nourishment from the Roman Catholic Mass without believing that the Eucharist literally becomes the body and blood of Christ. But without the doctrine of transubstantiation, the Mass would not exist to provide that nourishment. Not every churchgoer will share Flannery O’Connor’s opinion that if the Eucharist is “a symbol, to hell with it.” But the Catholic faith has endured for 2,000 years because of Flannery O’Connors, not Karen Armstrongs. - Ross Douthat in the New York Times on Karen Armstrong's new book "The Case for God"

[Douthat] makes a fine point when he remarks that the early Fathers were dogmatic, but not Fundamentalist. Armstrong's Episcopalianified squishiness attempts to preserve theism from the hostile onslaughts of Dawkins and Co by shrouding the whole thing in a fog of non-committal niceness and PC pieties. Douthat blows the fog away by noting that actual Catholic faith, while lithe and supple and ossified by the stupid categories of ideology, is nonetheless possessed of a definite skeletal structure (which is what allows it to be lithe and supple). The difference between Catholic faith and current ideologies is that ideologues on the Right want only the skeleton (dismissing everything else as touchy feely) and ideologues on the Left tend to want only the breath without having the body attached. - Mark Shea

Our sermon reading this morning was from Ephesians 4. My mind got bogged down on the wording of the first verse of the sermon passage: "Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. (NRSV)"...Say what? Did any stylist or proofreader or English scholar check whether or not “live in the futility of their minds” is English? What possibly could “the futility of their minds” mean?...Are there any versions that make sense in their translation of this verse? Thankfully, yes: "So this I say to you and attest to you in the Lord, do not go on living the empty-headed life that the gentiles live." (NJB)...Isn’t it actually more accurate to convey the meaning of the original Greek text in such a way that the reader can understand precisely what Paul was writing in Eph. 4:17? What do you think can be done to help English Bible translation teams from including odd English word sequences, which are meaningless to many people, from appearing in their published translations? - - Wayne living up to his blog's name, "Better Bibles blog"

I love the feel of books, the look of books, and even the smell of books... I couldn't see myself reading a book in not-a-book form...Then I got sick (reading is the only thing that makes me feel better), too sick to get to the bookstore... And so I bought a Kindle. I read every day, for as many hours as I liked, and without restraint. I couldn't work; I couldn't go out much, and I didn't need to: there was always another book waiting in line (and on line) for my reading pleasure. I read like a madwoman. I would get drowsy, and on those long reading afternoons when the Kindle slipped from my hand, it fell silently on the pillow and I slept. I found myself talking to it, wishing it a good morning, explaining my time away from it. My Kindle was my constant, quiet, light, and refillable companion. Bliss. But.. I was, however, hurting my beloved bookstores. If they don't have people paying full price for books made of paper, they will perish. I could not give up my Kindle, so I made a bargain with myself. For every book I download on Kindle, I now go to my local independent bookseller and buy a book in hardcover. - Jane Isay

Spiritual childhood is the leavening agent in Marian devotion. Any Christian can come to grasp Mary's unique role in Salvation History, emulate her response to God, meditate on her Fiat and Magnificat on a daily basis, and yet not really love her... one would first have to become a child in spirit...The more one becomes like a little child before God, the more one is drawn to His Mother. - Sancta Sanctis