Life as a Catholic

Happy Birthday, Joseph!

2009-03-03T23:45:00.003-05:00

Already one year old today...wow.

Random notes

2009-02-11T09:59:00.001-05:00

* Anyone catch that Obamoid college student at the town hall meeting yesterday? He's been working in a McDonalds for the last four years and can't find a new job--so he says. He also asked if Obama was going to increase his benefits. They haven't changed in four years, so...

Oh yeah, and he's majoring in communications...

* Got my permanent (as opposed to my temporary) concealed carry permit today. The second news item I heard this morning was that Virginia gun dealers have a shortage of ammo.

Sigh...

* On the first news item I saw this morning, "Morning Joe," Sen. Boxer was blabbering about how the stimulus package will work and the Republicans are big meanies for threatening a filibuster. She said something like "And you, Joe, and the 'C...B...O...'," (she emphasized it with air quotes) "say it won't work..."

Joe Scarborough's look was priceless. I'm sure he was sorting through the things he could say on live TV, but he finally settled with "That's the Congressional Budget Office, Sen. Boxer," he said. I literally LOL'd. My own little Joe, who I was feeding graham crackers at the time, laughed along with me.

* Just got a call from Grace. She was working out in the living room with her exercise ball and a couple of 7lb barbells. She got up to get a drink of water or something, and when she came back one of the barbells was gone. She looked all over thinking Joe had rolled it under a couch or something.

It was nowhere, so she expanded the search to the bedroom, thinking he must have rolled it really far away. He did more than that, though--it was up on top of the hutch in the bedroom.

This is amazing, because that thing is almost half of his weight. He hefted that thing a good thirty feet away and lifted it to about his chest level. WHY he did it is anyone's guess, but here's my theory: I had to pry him off of me when I left this morning. As soon as he saw me getting my stuff together, he gave me the sad "bye-bye" wave. But when I actually picked up my laptop bag to leave, he velcroed himself to my leg. It took three tries and one book distraction to escape, but I joked on the way out "We'll put you to work in the company business soon enough, little man."

Joe, my little goal-oriented toddler, is already working out to meet the minimum company standards...

Good times...

God protect little Joseph

2009-02-07T17:08:00.001-05:00

Because if the anxiety I feel leaving him with the babysitter is even 1/1000th of what tragedy would feel like, I wouldn't survive.

Yes, I think these things all the time now.

A midnight message to my wife

2009-01-24T00:04:00.000-05:00

Thank you, honey, as you take another night shift to help our little enterprise stay afloat. Granted, we could have thought this through a little better, but I sincerely appreciate your work and sacrifice. Just know that tonight, when little Joseph stirs and begs to come to our bed, as he's kicking me in the face, I'm loving you.

Yours,
C.

Dispatch from the Fortress of Solitude

2009-01-18T12:23:00.001-05:00

Is anyone there? Please, anyone? I need help. I've holed myself up in the bathroom while the Beast sleeps. My wife is sleeping because she took a job doing the midnight shift at the front desk of our apartment building. She does this on the weekends--Saturday and Sunday morning--and has to catch up on sleep for the rest of the day. That leaves me on babysitting duties the whole day, and I have work to do.

Please, somebody help me. He'll wake at any moment. Any sound could set him off. A dog has been barking in a nearby apartment since eight o'clock. Someone is playing hip-hop music. My situation is PRECARIOUS! I have dozens of e-mails to catch up on. I'm starving. I haven't showered. And this is the first time in 48 hours that I've been able to go to the bathroom. So, I'm multi-tasking.

He's sweet, I know. He's a very good boy. But he also likes to whack his head into things, and has a deadly affinity for light sockets. And even if the Boy doesn't kill me, the Mother will. While I merely try to keep our son alive, the house descends into a minefield of blocks, singing bear toys and Tupperware. If she wakes before I can clean it, she'll have my...hands.

Oh no! I heard a sound. Something down the hallway is stirring. Wait--is the bathroom door locked? Oh no! And my pants are still down! Help! No! You can't come in! Get out of that! Noooo!

When your enemies refuse to act like the caricatures you create...

2009-01-07T13:02:00.002-05:00

...you make up your own reality. Left-wingers infiltrate a Sarah Palin fan site and act like a bunch of deranged racist yahoos. You know why they have to do that? Because the VAST MAJORITY, as in, probably 99 percent or more, are NOT deranged racist yahoos. The Left needs people to believe that we are, though. A spooky enough enemy will distract you from the fact that they promote truly monstrous policies.

Pathetic.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-07T12:59:00.001-05:00

It's a good thing I didn't resolve to avoid procrastination, because my first substantial post of the new year shows up a week into it! Oy.

Quick recap of 2008:

The best thing: the birth of my son, Joseph Gordon. We were worried about a difficult pregnancy, but Grace sailed through relatively comfortably, and except for some inconvenient umbilical-cord-around-the-neck-necessitating-a-C-section stuff, he came out a healthy, happy little boy. After they wiped the slime off of him, of course. And after the goo they put INTO his eyes melted away.

As I write this, Joe is ten months old and scooting around the house like half a crab (4 legs). He's about to bypass walking and go right to running. His first word...pause here to relish the thought...was "Dada." Well, to be honest, it's actually "dadadadadada..." Close enough. He looks at me when he says it. Oh, and he can do a little sign language, too--he knows how to ask for milk.

His favorite music seems to be either classical, Gregorian chant or Joni Mitchell. That's my boy.

My business. This was a total surprise. I never set out to create an alternative "micro moving" business, but people seem to need it, and there's some real potential here. In late 2006 I put some ads on Craigslist for hauling and moving services, and I got a huge response. It's a bit dead right now (more on that later), however I expect that to change PDQ.

Two year wedding anniversary. When we got married in late '06, we both wondered if we had made the right decision. From my perspective, my wife must have had some princess in her background. She was annoyingly, claustrophobically neat, and couldn't stand my music. From her perspective, I was a slob, probably lazy, and an emotional flake. Two years and some months later, I'm neater, she's more laid-back, we like the same music, and we both appreciate the speed with which I cave on most matters. (Hey, it's just easier...)

;-)

Seriously though, life is good on that front. I had no idea I could love someone so much, and could give so much of myself. And that's a two-way street. I think it's often said that "marriage is 50-50." That's only half right. Marriage is 100-100. Grace and I give each other everything we have, and it makes life just right.

Getting laid off. This is, of course, related to the business. I want to say that getting laid off from my day job at the non-profit signaled the end of all my W-2 jobs, but we'll just see about that. If January doesn't see a significant rise in revenue, I'll have to finally get something to pay the bills, or at least half of them. (Health care would be nice too.) Nonetheless, I have yet to worry about the "unemployment" situation. I see nothing but opportunity here and I plan to exploit all of it.

Resolutions for 2009?

I've never been good about resolutions (or goals, for that matter). I'd usually forget what I resolved to do or not do within a week. Resolutions were wishes, at best. Goals? Lol. Goals were for losers.

Having now witnessed the ascension of a number of losers my age or younger to great success, I'm willing to reassess my impression. As it turns out, goals, especially when they're written down, tend to produce results. Who knew? Thank you, 2008, for kicking my ass and explaining "Life 101" to me.

So what are my resolutions and GOALS? Fresh from the top of my head, here are a few:

1. Prove the moving business concept.
Just before I got canned, I laid out a plan to expand nationally by May. That's not off the table, but my plan, while ambitious, was FANTASTICALLY optimistic. I might as well have thrown in a cure for AIDS and the development of the warp drive, too. There were numerous reasons for this, but the biggest problem was lack of clarity of the end product. What would these "Truck Buddies" be doing? Why would they stick with my company? My answer: because it would be a profitable, proven system. One problem: I hadn't proven the system yet.

Fortunately, getting laid off brought this into sharp focus. That's why I'm working my butt off to make this thing a relatively easy money making machine. It's within reach. I can see what that scenario looks like. I just need to make it happen. More on that in my next post, but right now that's my #1 short-term goal.

2. Replicate the concept nationally.
Whether this is a full-time career or just something I do on the side while toiling at some W-2 job, this business will have branches in every major urban area of the country by the end of 2009.

3. Establish a freelance career.
I've got the copywriting skills, even if I don't display them here. (I've never been able to settle into blog writing. I compose fast, edit...rarely...and often don't have a point other than to keep the blog alive. If I get feedback, I'm inspired for a bit, but basically I feel like I'm talking to a void about nothing. Heh.) I'm up to my eyeballs in copywriting and Internet marketing books, and as it turns out, I love it. If I can get paid a few thousand bucks or so per month for writing some sales pages, letters, e-mails or whatever, I'm set. It's not my DREAM, but why let the skillz go to waste?

4. Begin publishing fiction.
I'll probably start writing some fiction on my other blog in addition to sending it to a few of the other fiction-publishing blogs out there. I don't expect to get rich...ever...as a writer but it's necessary for some reason. As someone once said, "It's not like you don't have a choice--you either write or you die." For some reason I can't explain (some writer, I know), I simply must continue to think of writing as my vocation. People tell me to--people who write much better than me. So, there it is.

More soon. Until then, my handful of faithful readers, (Jimmy, Jim, Steph, honey), Happy New Year! As Steph said, (on her Facebook page, I think), 2009 is going to be my bitch. I've slept through 34 years of my life, I'm about to turn 35 (watch for drunken live-blogging on the 31st, as well as many more parenthetical statements), and I'm sick of it. Here I come, 2009. I'm cocked, locked, and ready to be adequate!

Still here

2009-01-05T19:01:00.000-05:00

Stuff coming soon. I have a ton to write about. Just no time to do it. Who would have thought that unemployment could make a guy so busy?

Outlaw Biker Gangs--pathetic or prescient?

2008-12-26T22:19:00.005-05:00

I gave in to the lazy tonight and watched a little mindless TV. (I give in to that a lot, heh.) On the History channel, or whichever channel airs "Gangland," there was a show about the "Warlocks," an Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (OMG) based in Florida. They're one of the biggest, and considered one of the most dangerous, of OMGs in the country. I didn't really catch why they were one of the most dangerous, though. It seems that most of their violence is directed at other gangs, and even that was somewhat limited, and these days, far less frequent. They've been busted a few times for gun and drug charges, but other than that, I don't see how they're more violent than your typical "inner city" gang that seems to blow someone away every day.

Anyway, my first reaction was amusement. These guys talked a lot about dying for the "club," or how they didn't know if they'd make it through the day. For what? It was never really clear. It seemed so utterly pointless. They hung out in their crappy clubhouse all day, rode their bikes and partied hard (their mission, apparently). The top guys interviewed sat their with their sunglasses on, chins upraised, oozing defiance.

It was pathetic. What exactly did they stand for? What were they willing to die for? Brotherhood? Okay, sure. But they made a real point of saying they were "outside of society." They were, well, not "above" the law exactly, but certainly beside it.

But there was something about it. Maybe all soft, white-collar guys feel some attraction to the life of the anarchist. Maybe they dream of replacing TPS reports with the certain, direct effective report of a .357 Magnum. But for the most part, when the white collar guys express those thoughts, they sound like poseurs, because they are.

So what's the deal with the OMG? Sure, maybe they don't express themselves very well, and maybe they could find better things to do with their lives, but I suspect that their lives are an extreme reaction to a variety of poisons killing our culture slowly. Say what you want about them, but they're not relativists. Given the choice, I think I'd rather some of these guys have my back than the squishy, limp-wristed relativists who make sophisticated-sounding arguments against morality. I'll take someone with an imperfect moral code than someone who rejects morality completely. I doubt you'll ever hear "Spike" give his best case for absolute truth, but he isn't going to declare, absolutely, that there is no such thing as truth. Their lives may be messy, but they don't seem terribly complicated.

No, I'm not idealizing the OMGs. But I think they may be one natural consequence of a culture too clever for its own good. In a time when we, immediately after terrorists demolish 3,000 of our countrymen, blame the victims, OMGs seem to have a clearer read on things.

Just sayin'.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-24T10:38:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas to all!

Truckin'...(UPDATED)

2008-12-15T10:58:00.001-05:00

Last week was hell, but here's the odd thing--I rather enjoyed it. I may have to talk to my priest about this...

The situation: I was laid off from my job, and the next day my wife and son came down with a nasty cold. It was harder on her because my son, Joseph, didn't get the memo that colds justify long, lazy days in bed being served hot soup and tea. That was Grace's plan. Joseph, however, had other plans. He pretty much kept up the normal Official Baby Business of crawling, pooping, eating (but not much, resulting in thousands of dollars of wasted formula), getting into cabinets, trying out some crazy new climbing skills, bonking his head which is magnetically attracted to the hardwood floors, and incessantly trying to stick his fingers into light sockets, the dishwasher, and the poky parts of my moving equipment. The only thing that really changed in his routine is the added activity of smearing the snot flow from his nose all over his face. This usually made him very, very mad. Given that he's the fastest crawler I've ever seen and the mucus membrane covering his entire upper body, I've been calling him "the Snot Rocket."

So, in addition to hunting down new business, I was chief executive officer in charge of TLC. I think they're out of the woods now, but last night my body simply shut down. The Snot Rocket went down at 7:30, and Grace came into the living room and said "I'm not too proud to go to bed at 7:30." Since my head was rolling around on my shoulders like a bowling ball tethered to the top of an ant hill, I concurred and we hit the sack.

We all slept for 11 1/2 hours.

Now it's Monday morning, one week since my unceremonious booting, and it's back to work.

And business is good! I've got a good amount of cash to deposit today, and I've got a few jobs lined up this week. I need to get about three more $100 moves to meet the weekly goal, but I'm confident it can happen. If not, well, we'll just have to figure something out.

Still, there have been a number of miracles, or at least signs that things are going to be alright. For one, a generous anonymous reader offered $100 to help. My pride stings at that, but since I'm in charge of two other people's well-being, it's time to get humble.

Another "sign:" Last night I delivered a table to someone referred by a friend. The buyer is a commercial lender and we talked a little bit of business. He may be able to help me out if/when I seek some start-up money.

Overall business has increased independent of the desperate e-mails I sent friends. I'll try to blog on this later, but curiously, my Craigslist TEXT ads bring in more business than my graphic ads. It could be a statement about my failings as a graphic designer, or a statement about my writing skills. I don't know. But whatever the case, people respond to long text ads more. Go fig.

A well-plugged-in woman at our church sent me the e-mail of a guy looking for "solid Catholic guys" to fill some positions at his company. I checked out the company and get this--it's all about helping business owners find e-commerce solutions. That has been one of my biggest problems--where do you go to find off-the-shelf or custom-made software? Well, now I know. (We'll see about the job--I think it's a sales position, and I've already been laid off from a tech sales position before. Call me superstitious, but, well, just call me superstitious).

Oh, and Barbara over at www.mommylife.net wrote a fantastic post about the business. Do thou check it out. (And tell your friends!) ;-)

Finally, on an note unrelated to business, our priest and the above-mentioned woman's husband have been in cahoots about getting us some help. They've quietly approached some people in the parish about us, without using our names, and we have to pick up "something" this Wednesday. I don't know what it is, but I hope it's baby formula. The Snot Rocket is fueled by this stuff, but what he doesn't finish seems to go right through him. A $25 can is about four days' worth of fuel. So, I hope it's that...or an S.U.V. Lol. I guess I'm not THAT proud. It's kind of tough to be proud when your decade-old Nissan is about to blow the power-steering apparatus through the hood. Yeah, we've got that problem too.

There's a lot more. The blessings keep stacking up. It's so obvious that we're being cared for...from above...that even I can't chalk it up to coincidence. I don't know what's about to happen in our lives, but I know it's going to be different, it's going to be big, and it's going to be for the best. It may even be AWESOME. ;-)

I'm overwhelmed by all the friends and even strangers who've come to our aid or even pledged help. I was beginning to despair, long before our current trials, that the Catholic community was just bad at community. It turns out it's not, at least around here. There are saints among us.

UPDATE: Heh. I forgot to mention why my week from "hell" was enjoyable. It's simply this: through it all, all the stress (such as it was), the distraction and the labor, I was just...happy. When my body wanted to give out, it kept going. When the Snot Rocket screamed, I kept my cool. When Grace needed a cut of Theraflu just as I sat down to be comfortable, I was happy--HAPPY--to get it for her. I loved serving them, and the graces overflowed. I think we'll remember last week not as the Week Everything Changed, but as The Week of Grace (as in, the literal life of God, not my wife's blogonym.) ;-)

Thank you, Anonymous...

2008-12-15T07:02:00.000-05:00

What can I say?

Well, yes, this being a blog I have to say something. So, something coming soon. It's a work day after all, and this is now kinda my job...

Living on faith

2008-12-09T09:48:00.002-05:00

Yesterday at work there was an all-staff meeting. I knew it wasn't going to be good--all-staff meetings never are. They're for chastisements or bad news, although I do faintly recollect going to an "atta-boys" meeting once.

I also knew that the organization was in bad financial shape. A few of our donors took ferocious financial hits--one guy losing more than 60% of his wealth--and had to back out of their pledged gifts. One guy took back a million dollars. Other donors had to cancel another million in combined gifts. The result was a $2 million shortfall. Heads had to roll.

Long story short, I was laid off with about a dozen other people. It was a double-whammy surprise because even though I suspected this might happen, I expected it to happen after the new year, and even after Christmas. It was also a surprise because during the president's Talk, he said every department but Development (my department) was effected. All through his explanation, while people began to weep, I thought "This is it. I'm the lowest one on the totem pole. They're definitely going to let me go." When they didn't, and he said that all the people being laid-off were notified already, I was surprised.

I was literally in the middle of an e-mail to my wife telling her that I'd dodged the bullet when I got the call. My supervisor (the guy who caused me so much grief over the past two years) called me in to the executive V.P.'s office, and they gave me the news. Here's a small severance. We'll pay you through January 9. Good luck.

They also stressed that the layoff had nothing to do with my performance, or lack thereof. I tend to believe them because among the unhappy crowd of the newly employed from my organization were some really good people. They were producers, part of the visible front of the organization (they were on TV a lot), and are some of the top people in the business of media and politics. In a way, I'm among an illustrious bunch. Heh.

I won't go into a bunch of crap about my "feelings" here, but suffice it to say that I'm still somewhat in shock. I guess that's what it is because I'm surprisingly optimistic. This is the crucible. I have a wife and son to care for, and our break-even every month is about $4,000. That's not because of extravagant living--that's rent and bills. We can shave some off of our grocery and baby clothing budget but not much.

I'm also optimistic because last week, and through the weekend, I finally sat down and planned out what I need to do to launch the moving business nationally. I can do it for relatively little start-up money, too. If I hadn't mapped that out, I might be freaking out right now, but since I've got a very do-able game-plan, I'm confident.

I have some choices to make, though. Should I focus all my energies on starting up MyTruckBuddy.com? Should I find a job RIGHT NOW? Should I pursue some of my other entrepreneurial ideas, such as freelance copywriting? For the next few days I'll consider all my options, but I have one over-arching desire--not to work for anybody ever again. Having to get another J.O.B. will be failure for me, but if it means providing for my family, I'll do it.

I'm also confident because I have never felt closer to the Father. There's still quite a distance between us, and I'm very aware of my persistent sinning, but I know that He's there, watching, teaching, loving. I'm sure I'll have a few freak-out days where I deny that he's remotely involved with our lives, but those phases pass, and He seems to accept my poor confessions and repentance, time after time. For now, I'll be living on faith, that's for sure.

Like I said, this is a crucible. It's do-or-die time. I'm in no mood to die, so time to start doing.

Btw, any ideas, suggestions, comments or even criticisms are welcome. As are your prayers. ;-)

35,000 Protestant Denominations?

2008-12-08T13:27:00.003-05:00

I was reading a convert's blog (found here) and came across the statement that there are "25,000 Protestant denominations." That caught my eye because I usually hear it pegged at 35,000 Protestant denominations. Sometimes it's lower, but usually not higher, and I believe that comes from the Encyclopedia of World Religions.

I've certainly thrown that number out there before. After all, it makes sense--there's a different Christian "church" on every block. There's so much church hopping-and-shopping going on that 35,000 seems a little low. And actually, a while back I pretty much came to the conclusion that it's extremely low.

Today, 500 years of theory is now common practice. Every man is his own authority. Every man is his own Magisterium. Every Christian or quasi-Christian with a Bible claims to do what it says, but what it says is surprisingly inconsistent across sects. Sure, there is some agreement on the so-called "essentials" and "core doctrines," but that's not the point. When a Protestant describes how he gets to the truth of some theological matter, he says he goes to the Bible. I have often posed the question to various Internet interolutors "How do you know if your church teaches truth?" Invariably, they respond with "I check it with the Bible."

So, it comes down to just me 'n my Bible. That doesn't lead to 35,000 denominations, it leads to hundreds of millions.

And that's yer random thought for the day. ;-)

My son's first B.A.S.E. jump

2008-12-03T11:53:00.000-05:00

It went well, actually. No broken bones, no cuts, scrapes, and just the smallest hint of a bruise.

The location: his crib. I was on the phone with Grace when it happened, yes, driving down the road. All of a sudden she starts screaming "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh! I'll call you late--" and then she hung up, but not before I heard my 8-month-old son, my world, screaming in pain.

What does one do in such a situation? One drives in a straight line, stunned, imagining the most horrible things. Intruders...terrorists, no doubt...gas line rupture...building collapse...suffocating, hardening gel-like substance piped in by an evil multi-national corporation. (We've perhaps watched too much "Fringe.")

As it turned out, the little guy managed to climb over the railing of his crib, a feat we didn't expect for another month at least. Forensic analysis indicates that he probably folded himself over the rail, flopped forward, and did one complete rotation on the way down. He probably hit his head on the base of the crib, too.

Thankfully Grace called me before the road curved and I drove through a McDonalds. He was pretty PO'd, but alright. Since then his head has bounced off a variety of surfaces, and I'm pleased to see that it's made of material stronger than wood, tile, thin carpet and cabinets.

Post-script: My mom likes to tell the story, usually when trying to motivate me somehow, that I never learned how to crawl out of my crib. She'd ask me why I never tried to (so presumably I never learned to escape even after I'd developed my language skills), and I would answer, "I caaaaan't." That's been a common theme in my life.

So, good job, Joe! You've already surpassed your old man well before the one-year mark.

I might as well give it up and put on some diapers.

What divides us in one picture...

2008-12-01T14:12:00.002-05:00

An ex-Catholic buddy of mine came to town recently. He and I have battled it out on a message board for half a decade or more, but in recent months we've had a comfortable truce. So, our meeting was pleasant--marked by election night conversation and a few brews.

Thanks to the miracle of Photoshop, we're able to imagine what would have happened if we'd exchanged a Bible and a Catechism. Heh. (Click for larger picture)

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T12:16:00.000-05:00

That is all. :-)

Praise God and pass the ammunition

2008-11-25T23:19:00.002-05:00

So, I got a gun. It shoots bullets--REAL bullets. It also makes a large bang.

That's what she said!

No really, my wife really said that. At the range last Saturday, she fired it once, put it down, went to the adjacent stall and cried. It was a big bang.

What kind of gun? A Glock 23, precisely. I shopped around for a couple of weeks, tried a few out, and finally settled on the Glock. It's not a particularly pretty gun. See:

But it holds a lot of ammo (13 rounds or so), is easy to maintain, and has the right amount of stopping power for today's modern yuppie suburban.

It's been quite an adventure. I tried out a Sig 229, a Ruger something-or-other, and a Ruger .38 Special. The .38 was particularly nice--good feel in the hand, great accuracy, and I was pleasantly surprised at how fast I could load and fire the thing. In the end, though, I went with the Glock because it had the best balance of all the features I wanted.

Why a gun? Squirrels. I hate the little rats in fuzzy pajamas.

Lol. No.

Not to sound too crazy, but things are getting close to the brink in this country. And no, it actually doesn't have a lot to do with the election. Because the Supreme Court recently ruled that we have a right as INDIVIDUALS to protect ourselves with firearms, I don't think there's a lot Obama and the Dems can do to take away that right. What gets me nervous is the likelihood of a Depression and rampant, senseless, random crime. For example, a buddy of a co-worker of mine was recently knifed to death--along with his brother and a friend--for no discernible reason. Other examples abound.

Another way to put it: I don't want to lose my life, orphan my child and widow my wife just because I decided to get some Cool Ranch Doritos down at 7/Eleven one night.

So yes, I guess that means I'll be packing heat the next time I get the munchies (after I get my concealed/carry permit, of course.

By the way, my wife is going to arm herself, too, but she needs to find a gun that she feels comfortable with. She tried out the same .38 Special I did, but it had "too much kick." Nonetheless, the very first time she fired it (which incidentally was the first time she ever fired a gun of any kind) she came within an inch of a bullseye. Her second and third shots were only a few inches from that shot.

Scary.

So, now this is the "Life as an Armed Catholic" blog. Clingin' to our guns and religion, that's us. ;-)

What IS the precise definition of "vigilante," anyway?

2008-11-21T10:55:00.002-05:00

I wonder because I think I want to be one. I'm not sure how to go about it, though. Is there like a class or something? Maybe a course at the adult learning annex?

It might be even more complicated because I want to be a Catholic vigilante--you know, someone who shows up at Catholic dissenter meetings and shooting all the aging, pony-tailed hippie dissidents with holy water from my plastic squirt gun. I want to finish them off with dry-cool catch phrases like...well, I can't think of any right now. That's why I need a class.

I'm thinking about this because yesterday I had a conversation with a friend coming into the Church. Or trying to come into the Church. The problem is that she knows more about Catholic teaching--and is more faithful to it--than the elderly heretic in charge of the RCIA program. Among the gems she's shared with the class:

* There is no Hell.
* The Church isn't the body of Christ.
* The pope is wrong/stupid/evil/whatever.
* Priestesses are only a matter of time.

She's also expressed shock that anyone would want to become Catholic.

This woman is head of the inquiry program for RCIA at a New York parish.

I was wondering what we, the regular believin' folk could do about this situation all day yesterday, and then today I read this article at Inside Catholic. Make sure you read it on an empty stomach if you're Catholic. If you're not, go be Catholic. (If you can). The gist of the article is this: about half the population of Catholic universities in America is nowhere near Catholic, although they claim to be.

So, what to do?

I confess, I entertained thoughts about frog-walking them out of our parishes. Anyone who claims that there is no Hell has no business whatsoever guiding people into the Church. Sure, I think these dissidents and heretics should be approached with love and patience. But if they persist in flagrantly rejecting Church doctrine, sorry, but there's the door.

I certainly went through a very militant Catholic phase. When I came back to the Church, I tried very hard to love unconditionally. But when I hear these horror stories, I realize that the heretics within our ranks gleefully tap dance around all these efforts. I now firmly believe that far more harm is done by coddling the heretics than by bruising the delicate sensibilities of those who cry "judgment!" every time someone suggests that, you know, maybe you should BE Catholic if you say you are.

So, what to do? I'll have to think about this. Unfortunately, (or fortunately,) I don't have a lot of opportunity to practice around here. Our priests are solid, our religious education program is pretty good (if massively understaffed and underfunded), and I rarely see any public acts of dissent. (One of our priests occasionally offends some snowflake in the pews who thinks sucking the brains out of half-born infants is a magnificent way to exercise our freedom).

Kinda makes sense...

2008-11-10T10:20:00.002-05:00

Not to engage in "black comedy," (can we say that in the Age of Obama?) but I will: it makes a little bit of sense that the nation's first two assisted suicide laws came about in Oregon and Washington. I realized this as I read this article in First Things about how the assisted suicide movement has a little bit of wind in its sails after the good people of Washington, my home state, elected to get help with killing themselves.

It makes sense because when I lived in the Pacific Northwest, I was pretty much depressed all the time. The reasons had more to do with other things, failures of character and what-not, but the gray weather didn't help much. Despite the reputation, southwest Washington and northwest Oregon don't get constant rainfall like Seattle. (A little "About the Northwest" card on our hotel room nightstand claimed that Washington, D.C. actually gets more average rainfall). But it IS often overcast and gray. After visiting Portland after years of being away, I realized what that particular something, that character of the Pacific Northwest was--the gray and brooding concrete and rusting bridges made it feel like civilization was just one decade away from being reclaimed by nature. The northwest feels a lot like the surroundings of Chernobyl.

That's not to say I wouldn't go back there if the circumstances were right (i.e. my wife getting over her revulsion at the thought of it, and if I could land a job that would allow us to escape the dreary, somber winters), but take it from a native--that place can put your soul into a coma. No wonder people want the right to kill themselves.

Heh. It's not just the weather, of course. Living in one of the most liberal areas of the country pretty much guarantees that if you're a relatively normal person, you'll either want to move or swallow the barrel of a 12 gauge.

Our dirty little secret...

2008-11-10T09:29:00.003-05:00

I think that everyone--EVERYONE--knows that a fetus is a human being. I think that because words have lost their meaning in this post-modern age, evil people, or people seeking to do evil, can find refuge in clever arrangements of letters and sounds. When you want a child, the fetus is a "baby." When you have been "punished" with a child, (in the words of our President-Elect Obama), it's merely a fetus, a word that denotes some kind of gross blob of tissue.

That's not really my point, but it was driven home by this article about the future of fetal surgery. I was interested because I thought that such access to the relatively "mysterious" world of the womb might provide further evidence for what, exactly, is in there. (As if we need more evidence--between 3D Kodak ultrasound imagery and OUR OWN GUT KNOWLEDGE, there's little mystery for honest people). But one line hit me right between the eyes:

Surgeons have been operating on fetuses for more than two decades.

Are you kidding me? We've been able to OPERATE on "fetuses" for two-thirds of the time since Roe vs. Wade??? Let me get this straight--we've been able to operate on, among other things, SPINAL CORDS of unborn, developing human beings, all the while a legal regime has allowed us to grind them up and suck their brains out? An entire industry exists on the premise that fetuses are merely "blobs of tissue," while a large segment of the medical community knows for a fact that there are human features on these blobs?

In other words, how does a "blob of tissue" have a spinal cord? A heart? Lips? And all the other things that can be operated on in the womb...

It's insane. Literally insane. To quote that bumper sticker: "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."

For a really cathartic rant, I suggest checking out Barbara Nicolosi's blog. She's nailing it hard, particularly where cafeteria Catholics are concerned. Scroll down for a graphic picture of an aborted "blob of tissue" if you can stomach it.

Okay, we can be friends...

2008-11-06T17:13:00.001-05:00

Kind of gross, but well-received. :-)

God bless America.

"Religion is dead"

2008-11-05T14:10:00.001-05:00

According to Fr. Stephen, sort of...

The Republican party is dead. The Democratic party is dead. Neither of them can give you life. They belong to a world that is passing away. What remains is what has been established by God and still sails before the winds and on the tide that obey His voice.

There is a Kingdom of God, found in communion with the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. It is not removed from us but has come among us. It breaks forth in human lives and burns with spiritual fire in the sacraments of the Church. It heals the sick, raises the dead, casts out demons and gives freely what it has freely received. It knows no economy other than the fullness of God who causes the barren woman to be the joyful mother of children, who brings forth water in the desert and changes water into wine.

"Finally catching up to the rest of the civilized world."--UPDATED

2008-11-05T13:50:00.004-05:00

That's what a friend of ours said on her Facebook page last night. This girl is, sadly, totally intoxicated on the Obama Kool-Aid. I commented on another of her posts which said she was "overjoyed" at his victory. "Four years of wealth redistribution and stronger pro-abortion laws, yes we can!" I meant it to be at least somewhat funny, but her response was "blah, blah, blah."

Anyway, I know her "civilized" comment is common to, well, more than half of our country. The civilized world to them is Europe, of course, but I don't see how the word "civilized" applies to a people who witnessed unprecedented blood-letting and carnage in the 20th century, and now think it enlightened to make it easier to kill themselves.

Item: More non terminally ill seek Swiss suicide aid.

"Being tired of life and in very poor health are becoming more frequent reasons to seek help to commit suicide than in the past," said Susanne Fischer, co-author of the review of assisted suicides in Zurich undertaken by two groups, Exit and Dignitas.

Item: Washington voters approve assisted-suicide measure.

Voters approved Initiative 1000 on Tuesday, making Washington the second state to give terminally ill people the option of medically assisted suicide.

Yeah, we're catching up, alright. Just make sure the next time you go to the hospital that you have all your paperwork in order, in triplicate, otherwise you may just find yourself harvested. That's crazy, you say? Imagine if someone had said, 50 years ago, that people would have to fight for constitutional amendments defending marriage as a union between a man and a woman, or that it would be DIFFICULT to enact legislation banning a procedure where a doctor sticks scissors into the skulls of children to suck their brains out.

Today's crazy (or barbaric) is tomorrow's "civilized."

UPDATE: A doctor is on trial for speeding up a patient's death in order to harvest the organs.

"It's going to be epic."

2008-11-05T12:49:00.003-05:00

That's what Rush said just now. He was talking about "being ready for battle" and "rebuilding the conservative movement," and to paraphrase, kick the hell out all those people who have no right to be part of it.

Here's a little something I whipped up:

Come back with your shield -- or on it

2008-11-05T10:37:00.003-05:00

My wife has a new Facebook signature today, this day after a decisive Democratic election victory: "Conservative men: come back with your shields -- or on them." At this point, the dawn of a new era, I'm very tempted to indulge in hyper-hyperbole and say that she may have coined the battle cry for the coming fight.

I work in the oily engine room of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, and the impulse to abandon ship is very strong. I'm an affable sort--never really committing to anything and prone to broad, sophomoric pronouncements like "It's all bullshit anyway." For most of my life I've used that excuse to avoid being wrong on far too many things. But, I think, it's time I put on my big boy pants and learn to fight (and take a punch). So, while Republicanism is decisively dead, and conservatism may very well be an out-moded philosophy (according to many), I'm glad I'm right where I am.

Shannen Coffin wrote a great post on The Corner:

Elections are usually about ideas and principles. This one may have been about the cult of personality. But one bright spot cannot be denied. We now get to see what the Left truly believes in. For the last eight years, they have had someone else to blame for everything that goes wrong in the world. Come January, there will be no one to blame but themselves. A Democratic President and a Democratic Congress with very little power in the minority. It will be their ideas that govern. They'll be responsible if they fail to protect the American people, if they cannot spark the economy, if chaos ensues in Iraq. No more "Blame Bush," folks. We are going to see the Left unfiltered with no one else to blame. Oh sure, they'll now shift the talk to what a horrible burden they have inherited, and how no one really can save us now. But America won't fall for that. The financial crisis may not have been Bush's fault in its entirety, but he had the mantle when it came. His party took the fall for it. It will be no different now for the Democratic Party. It will also help us to define what conservatism is really about. It is terrifying in substance, but it may give us a chance to restart the battle of ideas.

Later, Peter Kirsanow (who I once watched battle Mary Frances Barry on the U.S. Civil Rights Commission for, literally, a seat at the table), wrote:

For those inclined to make nice, which of the following Democratic agenda items are you prepared to sign on to so that you'll get invited to the right parties?

* Employee Free Choice Act
* Fairness Doctrine
* Freedom of Choice Act
* Nationalization of health care
* Estate tax increases
* "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" (driver's licenses for illegals)
* Capital gains tax increases
* Defense cuts
* Liberal judicial appointments
* Racial and ethnic preferences
* Income tax increases
* Bans on oil drilling
* Global poverty tax/Kyoto

That's a pretty good index of what's at stake. But while any one of these are worthy of a conservative's total dedication to a fight, there is one issue that almost transcends all of them--our right to speak our minds unfettered and unfiltered by the mainstream media.

There's no doubt that the media handed this election to Obama. The hand that did so may have been attached to a gassy, disease-ridden, bloated corpse, but the media protected and coddled Obama right across the finish line. I don't think there's any serious debate about this, and with the Democrats' victory, the media will continue to have a large role to play.

Thank God I work in a capacity to fight the coming censorship, slander and lies.

I've been reading around the blogosphere (The Anchoress, Crunchy Con, The Corner, Dirty Harry's Place and many others), and there's a sense, particularly among the religious bloggers, that this is going to be four years of Lent. Many of us have thought it was high time for a "purge." On the Catholic side (and Catholics played a huge role in giving Obama the election), we traditionalists (small 't' there) have had it up to our eyeballs with so-called "Cafeteria Catholics." They are the walking dead--those who are either "not present" enough in Church to even realize their moral and theological hypocrisy, or those who are explicitly working to change the Church from the inside. (More than a decade ago I had a "Catholic" girl say she was getting her degrees in theology and philosophy to do just that). On the political side, as one of our resident culture warriors just said, it was time to purge the movement of "McCainites" and other fake conservatives.

Bingo.

What do we have to lose? I suspect that such purges have been so slow in coming for a couple of reasons. One, we don't like to be called "judgmental" or "reactionary" or a host of other terms. We don't like conflict. Two, I suspect, and this is only my suspicion, that both politically and religiously, we've been afraid to lose people.

I hope religious conservatives now realize that accommodating those in our midst who want to do our philosophies grave harm is futile. I hope they realize that compromise only gets us here--where America has joined a "transnational progressive" chorus of nations characterized by diminished prosperity and a culture of death.

Now is the time to fight. But how? Well, even though it goes against my nature, we need to pray. We need to form habits that strengthen us. For Catholics, that would be the Liturgy of the Hours or the rosary. We need to learn to explain and defend our beliefs, and learn how the difference between that and winning arguments. (Trust me, I've discovered the hard way that there often IS a difference.)

Without a spiritual backbone, all of our political efforts will be for naught. I think the Democrats' victory underscores this. For example, how can we say we're for protecting the institution of marriage when half of our marriages fail? As I write this, Proposition 8 in California, which will defend the traditional definition of marriage, seems to be winning. But for how long? This is not the first time citizens have had this fight, and it certainly won't be the last time.

How can we fight for the sanctity of life when we reflexively support the death penalty or torture? Or, for that matter, how can we say we're pro-life when we treat our fertility as a disease? How can we fight for "traditional family values" when we send our kids to CCD but take them to movies like "The Departed?" (One of the 8th graders in my CCD class a few years ago said "The Departed" was the best movie he'd ever seen.)

It's going to be a long four years, particularly while the MSM shuts us out. We have the alternative media, but let's face it, conservatism is now a weird little subculture. However, conservative ideas still resonate (otherwise Obama wouldn't have moved right to secure his win), and in time, with the failure of unfettered liberal policies, conservative ideas strongly held and articulated well, will once again ascend.

Or not. This is a moment of rare optimism for me. I thought, until this fight well and truly came to us, that if Obama won that would mark the end of our nation. It may very well be a time of "fundamental change" in our nation, and the America we knew, or thought we knew, or wished we had, will be a distant memory.

Whatever the case, our mission is clear: come back with your shield, or on it.

Happy dai

2008-10-21T09:30:00.001-05:00

Sarah Palin on SNL

2008-10-18T23:30:00.002-05:00

Ouch. She should have stopped at the monologue. THAT was hilarious and mercifully short. But she showed up during the Weekend Update, and while she didn't talk much, Amy Pohler and some of the other cast did a (white person) "rap," and it was...painful.

We make cute babies

2008-10-15T13:59:00.002-05:00

When perverts attack

2008-10-15T08:21:00.003-05:00

Last Sunday, I noticed a certain co-worker in a few seats behind me as I walked Joseph around. (He was being a handful, confusing my head for a jungle gym. My son Joseph, that is--not my co-worker). "Jim," we'll call this co-worker, is quite possibly one of the foulest people I have ever met in my life. One guy I met at a writer's retreat in high school might come close to winning the World's Foulest Man title, but his particular perversions had to do with language. Every other word was the F-bomb. Jim, however, rarely, if ever, curses. Rather, he finds the most perverted spin on anything and gleefully expresses it, then watches like a vulture as everyone tries to deal with the toxic rhetorical gas hovering about the room.

In other words, here's a guy who belongs in church if you look at the Church as a hospital for sinners...

I have some pity for the guy. He obviously turned down some dark road a long time ago and is now lost in his own perversions. I want to be a good example for him, but then, I'm hardly a good example for anyone. I do my best, but more often than not, I end up avoiding his presence whenever possible.

Why? Well, fer'instance, he once followed us out of Mass, and made some point of doing so, to tell a little joke. Just as we were passing Fr. K., the priest who married us and baptized Joseph, Jim comes by and says "Do you really think you should have received Communion in a state of mortal sin? I mean, with your porn addiction and all..."

Nice.

For the record, I do NOT have a porn addiction. In fact, I give myself eyeball-whiplash (eye-lash?) all day long by avoiding glances at Maxim magazine covers, immodestly dressed girls, "saucy" banners on Web sites, etc. Heck, I won't even go into the produce section of the grocery store.

So, when I saw him sitting a few pews behind us on Sunday, I made it a point to steer clear of him. Unfortunately, I made eye contact with him as he was going up to Communion.

He had that gleam in his eye. That shine of perverted mirth. "I'm gonna get you, sucka!" it said.

Joe gave us a way out. After Communion, but just before the final prayer and blessing, he was becoming intolerable and we just had to go. So, we packed up and made a run for it.

The car was parked right outside. I'd carried him in--no carseat to muscle into the little Nissan--and I practically THREW the kid into it.

"Don't forget to buckle him in," Grace said, as she always says ever since I forgot that ONE TIME.

"No time, NO TIME!" I said. I could feel Jim getting closer, and sure enough, as soon as I did finish buckling him in, Jim was right behind me.

"Were you mad that Fr. R. singled you out about porn addictions in his homily?" he asked.

Faithful followers of this blog will know that I've had some "anger issues" lately. Jim didn't know how close he was to Judgment at that moment.

"No, Jim," I managed, "he was looking right at YOU." I think I smiled, but it must have been a frightful thing because HE smiled, but it was a twisted, nervous thing. He thrust his hand out and said "See you at work tomorrow!" I shook his hand, but made sure not to touch Joseph with my hand until I washed it.

Disclaimer...

2008-10-10T10:13:00.003-05:00

I should probably note that I have no intention of ever harming my in-laws. In reality, I talk big and carry...no stick, actually. The last guy I fought was my best friend in high school, and I was later the best man at his wedding. (I think he got me back pretty good, though--his bride got me to get down on my hands and knees as she used me as a bench to put her shoes on. I'm not really sure how that happened, but since it was a dry Baptist wedding, me and some of the other drunks-in-training surreptitiously quaffed a few beers before the reception, and things were a little "hazy.")

I will learn to love them again. Even if it takes a whole lotta gin, tonic and prayer.

Sick, in more ways than one

2008-10-10T08:44:00.003-05:00

Since I'm Catholic, I can't quote the exact Bible verse, but I know it's somewhere in Corinthians. Or maybe it's in one of Clement's letters. Hmm...Either I'm more of a "typical Catholic" than I want to admit, or I'm just a really bad Catholic. Redundant? Perhaps.

Sorry for the stream-of-consciousness, but I'm sick. It's just a relatively mild cold, but since I'm always on the edge of mental collapse anyway, this doesn't help much.

Anyway, the verse or quote I've been thinking of is where some people were receiving Communion unworthily, and that's why they got sick. Well, if I've received unworthily, it's not for want of better self-examination. No, last Sunday I intentionally chose not to receive because I didn't think myself worthy. The next day my throat turned to sandpaper, my muscles turned to mush, and all sound took on that distant, tinny sensation one hears when underwater.

Why didn't I receive? Because the latest round of drama with the in-laws revealed that my normal operating mode, "Fake it until you believe it," was totally inadequate. As soon as I read that letter from my brother-in-law to my wife, I was making theoretical plans that all ended with me and him in a remote cabin, him tied to a chair with electrodes hooked to his ear lobes.

Not good.

I had similar thoughts about the other brother-in-law, my father-in-law, and to a lesser degree, my mother-in-law.

What I should have done: asked God for forgiveness, bowed my head in prayer, and prayed for strength in this rough time.

What I did: became an agnostic.

Not a REAL agnostic, I suppose. After all, I still had enough horror at the thought of receiving Communion in such a state that I didn't bother to go up there. Naturally, that led to more pride--"Look at how holy and humble I am even in my doubts!"

I really felt like I crossed a line when I watched the last of the people go up for Communion while I stood there in the back, holding my son (letting him crawl all over me like I'm a human jungle gym, actually), and trying not to feel like a public heathen. I didn't intend to make a stand, but I guess that's what I did. I made a conscious choice not to receive our Lord. Why? The reasons are impossible to pin down.

I think it had something to do with the spiritual desert I've found myself in. As I wrote before, when your father(s) have abandoned you, it's pretty damned difficult to have a real connection with the Father. However, I don't put a lot of stock in that because I hate pre-packaged pop-psych excuses for malicious or whiny behavior. But maybe my rebellion had something to do with...

Never mind. I could speculate all day long. The bottom line: I've been going through the motions for months. Every Sunday it's been a little bit harder to get to Mass, and for the last month, I've been sure I couldn't or shouldn't receive Communion. I didn't want to fake it, because, so the logic went, receiving Communion when you either don't believe in it or YOU COULDN'T CARE ONE WAY OR THE OTHER, is just wrong. Very wrong.

Every Sunday for the last month or more, I've fought a battle with myself. For reasons I can't explain, I get madder and madder up until Communion, but I force myself to receive because I'm not conscious of any grave sin on my soul. A million little failures, sure, but nothing that should prevent me from receiving.

But then last Sunday, I just got sick of the fight. I didn't receive. I'm sick. Literally.

Oh, I'll go to Confession tomorrow, and I'll try to be sincere particularly where my in-laws are concerned. But nothing is resolved yet. Pray? Maybe. How does one do that? I've completely forgotten how to pray. Or maybe I never knew.

"I'll pray for you," Part II

2008-10-06T10:52:00.002-05:00

My favorite parts of the letter were the contradictory elements. On one hand, the whole thing drips with condescension and he says that looking at a gift from Grace would "make him retch." On the other, he "loves her."

Uh huh.

I guess there really isn't a whole lot to say. The letter expresses more than it intends.

Now, granted, he did call later that afternoon/evening to "apologize." The only problem is that all of his apologies ended with "however." As in, "I'm sorry for my tone, however you need to know that you're still evil and unrepentant and I'm not going to lower myself to your level, blah, blah, blah..."

An amusing note from that conversation: He said "You worship Mary!" She said, "No, I don't." Mustering all his powers of deduction, he said "Then you're not Catholic!"

Sigh. They made half-hearted plans to get together sometime after the wedding to "debate" these things, but since Grace is hardly a debater (not for lack of ability, but for lack of interest), I'll probably be there. I can't wait.

When "I'll pray for you" really means "I'll spit in your eye."

2008-10-06T05:18:00.004-05:00

My wife has an awful family. Don't worry--I'm not gossiping behind her back. We're on the same page here. My family also has its problems, but where they (as Cafeteria Catholics) scandalize, they make up for a lot of it by being hilarious and/or willing to fight it out. My wife's family? No sense of humor and too pompous to bother to defend their beliefs.

I wrote that first paragraph about fifty times. The original versions were largely unprintable because my in-laws inspire such visceral loathing it doesn't translate very well into human language.

The latest drama involves a note my youngest brother-in-law sent my wife. But first, a little background. (I'll make it quick--it's long and complicated, and besides, I want to save some material to mine later).

My in-laws hate my guts and hate their third child, my wife, slightly less. The reasons? Well, they won't really tell us much except that she's "in sin" and in an "unrepentant state." (What, like California? Zing!) They don't really give a damn about my alleged "unrepentant state" because--and this is just speculation--as a life-long blood-drinking heathen Catholic idolater, I'm not worth thinking too much about. But their daughter was once a True Christian, which in this particular province of Fundyland means "obeyed abusive father, didn't drink and had no discernible sense of humor." Since converting to Catholicism and marrying me, she no longer has to unquestioningly obey the man who likes to slap his adult daughters across the face, she can have a glass of wine now and then and not fear for her soul, and sometimes she even cracks a smile and tells a joke.

Anyway, the in-laws' hatred is a complex brew of things. My wife didn't want dad to pick her husband, she disobeyed their authority, she became Catholic, etc. Oh, and lest I forget, in those final days, when she was working long hours at a D.C. paper and commuting an hour and a half one way, she didn't get as much laundry done as she should have. Dad popped her for that one, too.

Anyway, the last five years or so have been "interesting." Communications have dribbled to almost nothing, but through the magic of Facebook, we learned that her younger brother (23 years old or so) is getting married soon. She first tried sending him a friend request to congratulate him. He rejected it but sent a note back: "Stop requesting to be my friend. You are not one."

So, she sent a nice note to his fiance expressing a desire to be all sisterly. Later that day, brother-in-law sent the following note:

I just heard that you sent my fiancee a message. I am writing to
tell you that when I told you to stop sending me friend requests, I
failed to mention that that also meant contacting me. I asumed that
you would have enough brains to know that that would also include my
fiancee. But since you obviously don't have the brains or courtesy to
realise that, I will tell you now. You are not welcome (means
"strictly forbidden") from EVER contacting my fiancee or myself (until
things are completely resolved between mom, dad, and yourself. and
that means to their satisfaction.) You are not welcome to send us a
wedding gift, if you do, it will be returned to you unopened, or
simply thrown away unopened. why would I ever want to receive a gift
that turned my stomach to look at because I thought of you every time
I saw it? Your congratulations are not welcome, and until things are
(to mom and dad's satisfaction) resolved I pray that neither my
fiancee or I ever "meet up" with you. !

Furthermore, (since you obviously don't have the sense or courtesy to know as
much by yourself) You are expressly forbidden from coming to our
wedding. If you do however for some reason find out when or where it
is and decide to come (Against our wishes,Yes, My fiancee's and My
Wishes), you will be immediately escorted out. One last thing that I
would like to inform you of, ANY further messages or emails that are
received from you or Chris will be imediately deleted without being
read. (yes, that means neither of us will read ANY further messages)
So there is NO nead to reply to this message.

You are my sister and I do love you and pray for you, and that's
part of why it hurts so much when you contact me in this state and
refusing to repent. I want you to get right with Mom and Dad and if
you do I would love to meet with you and see you and introduce you
back into my life... but until then you only have my prayers, and are
not considered a part of my family and especially not a friend. You
have done nothing but hurt my younger sisters, (all of us actually)
and tried to cause division in our family. You are not welcome back
into my or my family's life until you are right with Christ and Mom
and Dad.

You can feel the love, can't you?

I'll have a little more commentary later today, but I've just run out of time and need to get ready for work.

We should talk...

2008-10-04T05:43:00.003-05:00

Hey blog! Nice to see you again. Been busy? Me too. And well, I should be up-front about it...I've been with another blog. No, don't be like that. Look, you and I knew from the start that we had different priorities. You're a faith and humor blog, and let's face it, faith and humor are not my natural gifts. And so when I discovered that I really liked starting new businesses, well, it was natural for me to spend most of my blog time over at Flipping Insanity. We just work together better.

But hey, let's not fight. I'm back for awhile now and I want to tell you about some stuff...

MFD is underway VII

2008-08-22T10:41:00.001-05:00

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MFD is underway VI

2008-08-22T10:25:00.001-05:00

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MFD is underway V

2008-08-22T10:24:00.001-05:00

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MFD is underway IV

2008-08-22T10:05:00.001-05:00

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MFD is underway III

2008-08-22T10:03:00.001-05:00

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MFD is underway II

2008-08-22T08:40:00.001-05:00

BTW, Mandatory Fun Day is an office trip down to a theme park. It's their way of saying 'Thanks.'
I'll take it, but I'd rather have cash. Or booze. Booze would work.

Mandatory Fun Day begins in 5...4...3....

2008-08-22T07:40:00.001-05:00

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Tony Snow, requiescat in pace

2008-07-12T19:18:00.003-05:00

Tony Snow was, for me, different than most of the other public figures who we've eulogized in recent months and years. He was different because I actually met him and can say that the kind words being spoken about him were spot on. He was a good guy and will be missed.

The first time I met Mr. Snow was at a Heritage Foundation Christmas party for the media. I was an editor for The Washington Times back then, and also as green as they came. (Only divine intervention can be accredited for getting me a superficially cool-sounding title as "editor" of a national paper. In truth, the Moonie Times probably would have hired anyone.) Nonetheless, I got an invite through someone somehow.

I always hated those things even while I tried as hard as I knew how to get into them. Inevitably I would travel to such events full of excitement only to quickly find the bar and fade to the background as soon as I arrived. Sure, there were lots of people like me -- hangers-on and hacks, interns and the nakedly ambitious who'd only recently graduated from college. But the conservative literati also attended this event. Over there was Bob Novak. Nearby was Cal Thomas.

And grinning his way through the crowd was Tony Snow.

At the time he was an anchor at Fox News, not the president's press secretary. But I'd read a little bit about him, and one thing that I retained was that he had a rock & roll band. I was learning guitar at the time, so this stuck with me.

I made a point to mingle through the crowd, trying not to embarrass myself too much, but inevitably failing. I'd come to Washington with strong opinions which I mistook to be knowledge. It showed, and more than one conservative luminary simply walked away from me in disgust. Heh. It was a brutal time.

I backed into someone as I tried to extricate myself from another embarrassingly revealing conversation. I turned, fearing I'd spilled Bob Novak's drink all over his wife or something, but it was Tony Snow.

"My apologies," I said. And then, before I could stop myself, "Where's the band playing these days?"

He laughed and told me they weren't playing much right then, but he hoped to soon. Then we chatted for a bit, and like others have been saying today, he was one of the most open, unassuming people you've ever met. I was obviously a poor, rookie journalist who probably wouldn't go anywhere in this town, but he didn't once look around seeking somebody more important to talk to. For a few minutes, it was just me and Tony, talking about power chords and favorite influences. I can't possibly say I "knew" the man, but I'd like to think that for a second he enjoyed talking about one of his passions that didn't involve politics.

The second time I met him was less of a meeting and more of a passing by. He was talking to a colleague at the Corner Bakery in Union Station. It was not long after his first bout with cancer. I was in line behind him. He turned and looked at me, nodded with some recognition but not dismissively.

"Howdy," I said. "How are you feeling?"

"Good, thanks," he said. Then his friend turned his attention away and they moved on.

Rest in peace, Mr. Snow. Thanks for being a nice guy in a town with a shortage of them.

Is the rise of atheism sustainable?

2008-07-11T23:09:00.003-05:00

I think not. But then, we live in an age when kids can be suspended for refusing to pray to Allah, anything is possible.

I check the "debate" boards from time to time, and one of my former favorites is now overrun by rabid atheists, materialists, and, not to be too redundant, barbarian secularists. They claim for themselves the mantles of "free thinkers" and "realists." And this is an allegedly conservative board.

I guess the marriage of conservatives and the religious right is over...

Is it atheism's time, however brief that time may be? Or are normal people just going to get tired of these prissy asshats and relegate them to obscurity as their kind have been for all recorded history?

joe at stonehenge ii

2008-07-08T14:15:00.001-05:00

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joe at stonehenge

2008-07-08T14:14:00.001-05:00

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mm at stonehenge

2008-07-08T14:02:00.001-05:00

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stoneheage ii

2008-07-08T14:01:00.001-05:00

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A late, boneheaded insight...

2008-06-01T07:41:00.003-05:00

My relationship to God is somewhat fuzzy. I at least believe in the Father and seek Him, but as far as all those "spiritual Bon Bons" go (a term used by a good friend from my Franciscan University days), I got nuthin'. Occasionally I'll be moved emotionally (well, more often than not) by the reception of Christ in the Eucharist, but how about those rapturous moments of...

Oh, the very thought irritates me. Emotional "spiritual" highs are for sissies.

Here might be the reason why: I've never known a model for God in my life. That is, the men have been lukewarm at best.

Biological grandpa: died before I was born.

Biological father: gone right after I was born. (To be fair, mom decided against marrying him. I've always thought this was a good thing because he's a fundamentalist preacher out in Seattle. I avoided being a preacher's kid by thismuch.)

Step-father: Not a spiritual leader. To put it charitably, he taught by example. Since he was the only man in my life, he got the job atop the pedestal, and more or less did a good job up there, but as far as teaching us how to be men in the world, well, he left a lot of blank spots.

Step-grandfather: an ex-priest, he divorced my grandma after only about 15 years of marriage. Since I was 12, I've had the barest contact with him. I can't remember the last time I saw him, but I think I was no more than 13.

I wonder if I should include my father-in-law. Not that I need his example, but the guy has been suspicious of me from the beginning. Now he teaches his other children that I stole his daughter away and that the Catholic Church is evil.

I'm not going to make the cheap point that because the men in my life have been absent one way or another, that's what screwed me up, but they definitely have affected my relationship with God. (And I don't consider myself screwed up). Men are models for the Father, and when the men act like they don't care, or are just never around, why on earth should you expect God the Father to care about you?

Contrasts

2008-05-29T10:06:00.003-05:00

Jennifer at "Et Tu" has an awesome, and awesomely humbling, story of anger management and the Holy Spirit. Short version of the story: some young girls think it's funny to ring her doorbell at odd times of the day and night. It drives her to frustration, then rage. But she prays, and eventually she strikes up a friendship with the kids.

I find this awe-inspiring, because I would have stopped at the rage part. Actually, I would have taken the rage to whole new levels of intensity. For example, I might dig bear pits in my yard and line them with sharp, pointy sticks. I might have rigged my doorbell to give electric shocks. Or, I might have (definitely would have, that is) stood guard for as long as it took just inside the front door, shotgun in hand, and burst out screaming incoherently at them. I wouldn't be satisfied until I saw them try to run down the street with an inconvenient load in their pants.

I'm a big fan of forgiveness and the Christian way. I'm just not very good at it. Take, for example, my irritation with the entire planet...

No, take for example my thoughts about my in-laws. They've treated my wife abominably since she converted and married me. Actually, there was some pretty hypocritical behavior before she even met me, some abuse and what-not. But since then, they've cut her off, rewritten history, and have lied about me. Now, not a day goes by that I don't entertain some kind of revenge fantasy. Usually it involves humiliating them in some public way, but occasionally I catch myself tossing out some dry-cool catch phrase and side-stepping conversation altogether.

"I've got your sola scriptura right here!" POW!

My own mother has been a source of some baroque revenge fantasies, too. The woman is, shall we say, "difficult" at times. She likes to pick inconvenient places for confrontation, too, so instead of responding to her aggression, I usually try to keep the peace by just deflecting the insults or going mute. The result: endless meta-conversations featuring what I SHOULD have said. Sometimes it's so bad I actually start mumbling our meta-fights out loud. It must drive my wife crazy.

So yeah, I've got to work on that. Thanks, Jennifer, for giving me a positive example of how to do so.

Irony detector in the red...

2008-05-28T07:35:00.000-05:00

My trailer blew a tire two weeks ago, and it's taking me forever to get it fixed. The first problem is time--who has it? The second was the tire--who has one? I had to special order it, and it finally came in yesterday but I had to meet with some real estate agents about putting our condo on the market. (Hey, it's a good location and we can dream, although comps are about $20K less than what we need. That's another post...)

Anyway, I needed something to increase my small jack's reach. I looked all around our parking lot for a brick, or a chunk of concrete, anything. Nothing. So, I went back in and found the only thing thick an durable enough to prop under a jack and trailer: the 2005 Writer's Market book.

Sigh.

It's about time I got some use out of that thing.

By the way, yes, that is a dog house in the back of my trailer. I've been trying to unload that thing for weeks. Anyone want it? It's cedar, dry inside, and the top is like a convertible.

Cherie Blair: Cafeteria Catholic

2008-05-23T08:52:00.002-05:00

For the wife of former British PM Tony Blair, the cafeteria is apparently still open.

I struggle to be sympathetic to poorly catechized Catholics, but it's tough. If I can manage basic intellectual integrity, surely anyone else can. Look, if you don't buy into the Church's authority to teach on these matters, why are you Catholic? Seriously--the Church of England is a fine alternative for you. You can tailor make any belief you want. Why insist on calling yourself Catholic if you don't believe in Catholicism?

Blech.

Woo hoo! Half day!

2008-05-23T08:00:00.001-05:00

Most of the time, my A.D.D., (if it even exists) is a real pain in the ass. I'm surprised I didn't wake up on the morning of my wedding and accidentally play video games until 3:00 p.m. I seriously do things like that all the time. (Except for getting married frequently). But today the most wonderful, magical thing happened--I forgot that today is a half day, and that's not all! We're also barbecuing outside at noon!

Nice.

Even better, Grace is bringing the boy by for me to babysit while she goes to a doctor's appointment.

AND, it's a perfect, beautiful, humidity free day.

All these signs can only mean one thing--I'm about to have a heart attack.

Usurper!

2008-05-10T06:44:00.002-05:00

6:00 a.m.: whines and growls. The Boy is awake.

I drag myself out of bed, pick him up out of his cradle, and take him to the diaper changing station. He's not as cheery as he was yesterday morning. No, he just wanted that diaper off NOW, and oh, by-the-way, did you notice I've got my entire FIST in my mouth because I'm starving to DEATH?

We've got an emergency situation here. Explosion imminent.

With the diaper changed I take him back to the bedroom and ask Judie, who's as groggy as a Dartmouth boy on a Saturday morning, "A naturel, or bottle?"

"Hrngh."

Bottle it is.

I lay him down next to mommy on my side of the bed. He's arching his back and diverting all power to the vocal cords, but I think he's beginning to understand that the fastest way for me to get him a bottle is with two hands. So, he holds back for a moment.

My plan is to give him a quick injection of noms, burp him, and catch another couple of hours of sleep before my first move today. I make the bottle double-time and head back to the bedroom and...

What's this?

The little man is laid out in his little starfish sleeping position. He's like a cartoon coyote splatted on the canyon floor. Out. As in comatose. On MY side of the bed.

Well played, little one. Well played...

It's time for another episode of "Who's the Cutest Baby in the World!"

2008-05-10T06:43:00.001-05:00

As there are no other eligible contestants, Joseph Gordon, the reigning WTCBITW champion, will have no trouble defending his title.

Here he is in his favorite spot in the house, his changing table. Feeling fresh and clean, he flashed a few smiles which, I've found, are harder to capture on film than the Loch Ness Monster (which is totally real, by the way).

My apologies for the blurriness. He emitted a burst of cute rays which messed with the camera's charge-coupled device.

Busted.

2008-05-08T13:02:00.001-05:00

Here's Grace's second note. In my defense, I AM almost totally oblivious to what's going on at night. As Lord Protector of, and Provider for, the Realm, I am ashamed of this, but I've always liked to think that if someone did break in, some atavistic part of me would sense it and rise, Achilles-like, fiercely to the occasion. The following story, I think, bears this out.

+++

Joseph has almost learned to sleep consistently through the night (if
you consider 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. a full night). But very often he still
wakes at 2 a.m. for a snack and since I'm packing the food, it's no
surprise that the night shift falls to mom.

Chris must feel guilty about not helping, though, because he is
constantly saying that he doesn't even hear Joseph when he cries.
Until last night, I believed him.

What changed? At 2 a.m. as I reached for a burp cloth on the
nightstand, an eight-legged critter had gotten there first. Calmly, I
laid Joseph on the bed and whispered to Joseph in a voice so soft I almost
couldn't hear myself, "Hang on, we've got a spider situation."

At that, Chris who appeared to have been deep in dreamland, sprang to
a sitting position. His hair was wild and his eyes squinted as they
darted from the sheets to the wall to the ceiling looking for the
"spider."

Meanwhile, I picked up the cloth and disposed of Daddy's greatest
phobia -- Itsy Bitsy Spider -- all awhile shaking my head and
thinking, "You are so busted."

+++

Midnight Memoirs from Mommy

2008-05-08T13:00:00.000-05:00

Here's an unexpected treat: Grace blogs! She's written two posts (I'll post the second right after this). I wonder, though, how she managed to do this. All I ever hear is how busy Joseph keeps her, and how she can't put him down for one second because he's so needy all of a sudden. But she has time for a post? Hmm. Seems like time that could best be spent making me sandwiches. ;-)

(Note: we joke like that.)

Anyway, here's what she asked to be posted to the blog:

+++

Sometimes the best pictures are never taken but remain in the mind of
the beholder. Such was the image I saw a few days ago in the dim, hazy
bedroom light at dawn.

Joseph had been awake nearly the whole night and I was beyond
exhausted. When he woke again at 6:30 a.m., my darling husband took
over so I could sleep.

"Hey, little buddy," I heard Chris say softly as he picked Joseph up
out of his cradle and left the room to change Joseph's diaper. That was the
last thing I remember until I opened my eyes again after several short
dreams.

This is when I saw it; the image that will forever be framed in my
imagination. Chris was standing over the bathroom sink face full of
shaving cream, carving smooth lines with a razor in one hand while the
other arm supported a wide-eyed baby boy who looked over his daddy's
shoulder.

Too exhausted to fetch a camera, I closed my eyes and committed the
vision to memory.

+++

Note from Chris: Of course, as a guy, I'm going to read this as an artful entreaty to get up and help more! Duly noted, honey. Duly noted.

Just some pics of my morning bike ride...

2008-05-01T11:53:00.001-05:00

The Lord works in irritating ways...

2008-04-28T21:23:00.004-05:00

Last Saturday night the wife and I went to a co-ed wedding shower. (They're all the rage these days, I gather.) A good friend of ours is getting married, and good times were had by all, although I did note that I was the oldest man in the room, and clearly the only one with a child. (We were the only Catholics in the room, after all).

I ended up chatting with a banker. When he told me the name, I told him I'd never heard of it. Hoping it was a small, local bank that might look kindly on a new, poor business owner, I asked him if it was a small, local bank that might look kindly on a new, poor business owner.

"Actually it's an international bank with offices in every country of the world."

"I see." Then, polishing my schmoozing skills, I said "Can I have some money?"

I was uncharacteristically charming enough to then be invited to fill a vacated spot in a foursome in a golf tournament the bank was sponsoring. The only catch: it was on the following Monday (yesterday), a day otherwise known as a "work day." But I knew that my boss was going to be gone all week, I told him to sign me up.

So, I went and picked up a few supplies--golf shoes (I wish I could wear all the time), some tees, a tool for divots, etc. I carefully packed my golf bag (used only once so far), filled it with monogrammed golf balls that dad gave me a few years back, and generally made it as accessible and efficient as possible. I felt a little bit bad about blowing off work, but then, it was kind of like work, wasn't it? I was going to golf with potential investors, or at least bankers. Heck, I could write off my golf shoes!

I did make a show of going into work, though. Luckily I have an ally there who I could share my REAL reason for faking an illness, but before everyone else, I looked sufficiently haggard. One guy even said "You look like crap." (Heh. I wasn't trying THAT hard).

When today came, the rains came with it. I mean torrential downpours. We got tornadoes. In Virginia. I'm not making that up.

I was determined to golf, though, potential Caddyshack-like end or no. The worst day golfing is better than the best day at work, or so goes the theory...

I made it as far as the freeway on-ramp when I got the call.

Banker: "Sorry man. We're rescheduling for June."

Me: "But...but...what am I going to do for the rest of the day?

Banker: "Try sudoko."

Bankers...

So, instead I went home, had my work ally e-mail me some work, and went to it. Then, an amazing thing happened. I got stuff done! Joseph behaved himself for the most part, as did my wife, and I was able to get some writing done. Sufficiently efficient, I then turned to Truck Bud stuff, and I made great headway on a business plan. By the end of the day I was exhausted, but felt like I actually got something done.

Since working from home worked so well, I then called and quit my job.

Heh. No, but it's an ever-present thought.

Anyway, the Lord works in irritating ways.

"Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only"

2008-04-25T15:47:00.002-05:00

This at Rorate Caeli hits home at precisely the right time. Sure, it's a great "proof text" that makes the fundies dance, but one particular verse is exactly what I needed to hear (in bold).

Dearly beloved, Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if a man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he shall be compared to a man beholding his own countenance in a glass: for he beheld himself and went his way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was. But he that hath looked into the perfect law of liberty and hath continued therein, not becoming a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work: this man shall be blessed in his deed. And if any man think himself to be religious, not bridling his tongue but deceiving his own heart, this man's religion is in vain. Religion clean and undefiled before God and Father is this: To visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation, and to keep one's self unspotted from this world. (Epistle for the Fifth Sunday after Easter - Saint James, i, 22-27)

And this from Pius XI

It may be said in all truth that the Church, like Christ, goes through the centuries doing good to all. There would be today neither Socialism nor Communism if the rulers of the nations had not scorned the teachings and maternal warnings of the Church. On the bases of liberalism and laicism they wished to build other social edifices which, powerful and imposing as they seemed at first, all too soon revealed the weakness of their foundations, and today are crumbling one after another before our eyes, as everything must crumble that is not grounded on the one corner stone which is Christ Jesus.

This, Venerable Brethren, is the doctrine of the Church, which alone in the social as in all other fields can offer real light and assure salvation in the face of Communistic ideology. But this doctrine must be consistently reduced to practice in every-day life, according to the admonition of St. .James the Apostle: "Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves."

The most urgent need of the present day is therefore the energetic and timely application of remedies which will effectively ward off the catastrophe that daily grows more threatening. We cherish the firm hope that the fanaticism with which the sons of darkness work day and night at their materialistic and atheistic propaganda will at least serve the holy purpose of stimulating the sons of light to a like and even greater zeal for the honor of the Divine Majesty.
...
Even in Catholic countries there are still too many who are Catholics hardly more than in name. There are too many who fulfill more or less faithfully the more essential obligations of the religion they boast of professing, but have no desire of knowing it better, of deepening their inward conviction, and still less of bringing into conformity with the external gloss the inner splendor of a right and unsullied conscience, that recognizes and performs all its duties under the eye of God.

We know how much Our Divine Savior detested this empty pharisaic show, He Who wished that all should adore the Father "in spirit and in truth." The Catholic who does not live really and sincerely according to the Faith he professes will not long be master of himself in these days when the winds of strife and persecution blow so fiercely, but will be swept away defenseless in this new deluge which threatens the world. And thus, while he is preparing his own ruin, he is exposing to ridicule the very name of Christian.

Pius XI
Divini Redemptoris

Fitness is a family effort

2008-04-25T10:32:00.003-05:00

Lately (as in, about the last five years), I've noticed a little bit of a paunch in my mid-section. In fact, it's gotten a bit alarming. When one finds himself short of breath after tying his shoes, there's a problem. Or if, on your way up your condo's stairs on your way to pick up ice cream and beer, you give yourself a sweat stain on your back, it might be time to re-evaluate some habits. I used to be able to blame it on the humidity of the mid-Atlantic region, but, uh, it's actually been very nice lately.

So, I once again resolved to get back on my bike ride routine. I'd been thinking about it for weeks, really trying to figure out why this is so damn hard. Here were some of the obstacles as I saw them:

The bike is in the closet buried under a telescope, workout ball, some shelves (another neglected project), bike rack (ironically) and Christmas supplies. Getting it out would be a major pain. Might as well just make myself a gin & tonic...

My schedule is just too chaotic. What with a 9-to-5 job, another business I'm trying to start up, and of course, a new child and still shiny new wife, I just don't have the time. Might as well order pizza and hang out with the family after work...

My prayer life has been sorely neglected. Hey--get your priorities straight! What's more important, prayer or looking good for pool-time? Since I recently started the Liturgy of the Hours, which takes up a not-insignificant amount of time, I've struggled to squeeze it in somewhere. Trying to bike on top of that? No way. I'm just going to watch a couple of shows before prayer...

And so on. I have a million of them, although very few could withstand being spoken aloud. And, I quickly discovered, eliminating TV pretty much breaks the bonds of procrastination.

The family helps, too, in loving and not-so-loving ways.

Yesterday when I got home from work I discovered my bike perched outside the front door on the partially reassembled bike rack. For a moment I wondered if I really did have powers of telekinesis. I tried another mind experiment, but when I opened the door, no, my wife wasn't scantily clad sitting atop a pile of clean, non-sequential $100 bills. Dang.

So, I laid out all of my workout clothes before I went to bed, set the alarm for 5:45, and had a man-to-man with myself.

"Self," I said, "You know and I know that there's probably a 5% chance of actual bike riding tomorrow morning, but let's at least consider this a baby step."

"Self," I replied, "That's pansy talk. You go nigh-nigh now, and I'll go find your balls."

"Fair 'nuff," I said, and hit the hay.

Approximately two hours later, someone, perhaps a third self working in collusion with my first self, reached into my guts, grabbed, twisted and pulled, leading to an extended visit to the bathroom.

"Well, self," I said, "Looks like that blows my early morning plans. There's no way I'll be able to get up and ready to ride in time. Oh well, we tried."

"We'll see about that, Nancy," Self said.

At 5AM Joseph decided that it was time for his morning binge. He's been getting a fair amount of sleep lo these last few nights, but when he wakes up he'll try to eat anything near his mouth. This morning he was particularly irrational, and he shrieked and shrieked and shrieked. 5AM slipped into 5:15AM, and despite two pillows on my head, I couldn't drown it out. (This is where I lose my Father of the Year nomination. Using the bathroom experience as an excuse, I didn't offer much (read: any) help to Grace as she wrestled with the boy.)

Finally, at 5:41, I was wide awake and out of excuses. Almost. I was teetering on the edge. I could reset the alarm for 6:30, just maybe, and save a little conscience. After all, the baby was bawling his eyes out...

"Will you take him while I go pump?" Grace asked plaintively.

Look, I love my son. I love him with a heart-aching passion whether he's crying or cooing. But at that moment I saw an opportunity, I guess, and said, "Well, I guess I'll just have to get a bike ride in this evening."

The suddenness of her response startled me. "No! Go for a bike ride! I can wait!"

Hmm...

It occurs to me that Grace, for all of her love and encouragement, may have a larger stake in my exercise than I thought. To tell the truth, it hurt a little bit.

"No, really, I can just go tonight."

"Get up and move, fatty."

And I did. I have no one to blame but myself.

***

In many ways, where we live is awesome. Lots of walking paths in the immediate vicinity, a library, movie theatre, grocery store, ample and diverse restaurants (which is part of the problem). But the biking is terrible. It's all intersections and power lines and freeways. At my last bachelor pad, one of the area's best and most challenging bike paths ran ten feet from my bedroom. However, after a little trial-and-error, I eventually found the Northwest Passage of bike paths that connected our place to the Mall and the monuments. My goal was to get to at least the Lincoln Memorial, if not the Capitol itself.

I failed. I was hauling butt, considering I haven't been on the bike in a year, but I only made it as far as the Air Force Memorial. As it happens, this was most fortuitous. You'd hardly know it from almost any vantage in the area, but the Air Force Memorial is on a slight hill, giving you a really fantastic view of D.C. and all the major architectural landmarks. The sun was just coming up over the Jefferson Memorial, and it looked a lot like (to this rabid Catholic's reckoning) a Communion Host. The Lincoln and Washington Monuments were bathed in that soft, pink glow, and in the distance you could see the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the Washington Cathedral, the Capitol dome, and the Library of Congress.

I was the only person there, which was good because I had to put my head down and stare at the grass to keep from puking. I must have looked sad, but I wasn't. It was a perfect morning wreathed in joy.

The Island of Saints

2008-04-25T10:00:00.001-05:00

Great piece from Joanna Bogle at Inside Catholic.

The Island of Saints
by Joanna Bogle
4/25/08
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This year marks an anniversary for Catholics in Britain: 230 years since the first Catholic Relief Act. In 1778, the law banning Catholic worship and making it a capital offence to be a Catholic priest was relaxed for the first time since the reign of Elizabeth I.

For several years I worked at the House of Commons as secretary and research assistant to a Member of Parliament. My daily routine took me through an entrance just under Big Ben and, brandishing a special pass, I'd soon be in Westminster Hall.

And there, almost invariably, I'd stop. It was impossible not to do so. This great hall has stood since Norman times. In rounded arches beneath the hammer-beam roof are statues of our ancient kings. Here, with some interruptions -- a fire in the 19th century, bomb damage the Second World War -- the walls have echoed to great events in our nation's life. Here, King Charles I was tried. Here the body of our last king-emperor, George VI, lay in state in 1952, and that of his Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, in 1963. Here, in my own lifetime, Queen Elizabeth II received greetings from Parliament on her silver jubilee in 1977.

But for Catholics, this hall means much more. Here, our heroic martyrs spoke in defense of our Faith and heard the sentence announced of their deaths by the most hideous form of torture -- to be hanged, drawn, and quartered after being dragged through the streets of London. Here, the great drama of English religious history was played out, word by word.

A plaque on the floor marks where Sir Thomas More, chancellor of England, stood at his trial in 1535. Anyone who has seen the film A Man for All Seasons will know the scene. All that has substantially changed since More's trial is the great stained glass window at the rear. Erected after 1918, it carries the coats of arms of sons of members of the House of Lords who fell in the First World War. On a bright day, light filtering through the glowing colors throws bright gleams.

As chancellor, More was given the privilege of an execution on Tower Hill -- the swiftness of a headsman's axe rather than the horror of the butcher's knife and the cauldron at Tyburn gallows. Not so St. Edmund Campion, whose name no plaque commemorates. He was a Jesuit, deemed a traitor because he had gone abroad to train as a priest, and returned to reconcile Christians in England with the universal Catholic Church under the successor of St. Peter. He was tried here, with fellow Jesuits St. Alexander Briant and St. Ralph Sherwin. When sentence was pronounced, Campion, who had been very severely tortured, could not raise his hand, as the law demanded, to acknowledge it. Ralph Sherwin took his mutilated hand, kissed it, and held it aloft for him.

All three of these heroic priests suffered at Tyburn. They leave their legacy behind. It was while working at Westminster that I first read Evelyn Waugh's biography of Campion -- and found it so gripping that I could not stop reading it, holding it on my lap beneath the desk. Later, I memorized the words of his glorious declaration at his trial: "In condemning us, you condemn all your own ancestors . . . all that was once the glory of England -- the island of saints and the brightest jewel in the crown of St. Peter." He spoke of the Catholic Faith that Englishmen had held and cherished for centuries, the Faith centered on a Church founded and established by Christ and not by any worldly king, the Faith that rested on Peter and his successors.

As my knowledge of London developed, I learned about the other landmarks a Catholic should cherish: the brass cross set in a traffic island at a road junction in Bayswater that marks the exact spot of Tyburn Gallows; the pub near Lincolns Inn Fields where Bishop Richard Challoner used to meet Catholics for secret catechism lessons; the church at Spanish Place that has its origins in an embassy chapel, in which Catholics could pray safely, as it was technically foreign soil.

Catholics in London today mostly don't think about all this very much. We take our modern comfortable lives for granted like everyone else does. We have our churches and a great cathedral, built in the 1900s and now a standard part of the London scene. We go to Mass and meet friends there and have parish activities and complain about the hymns, and hold fundraising events for various projects like Catholics the world over.

But London holds its messages for us all the same. And today, as political pressure builds against the Church -- criticism of our Catholic schools for being "fundamentalist" and not allowing certain forms of sex education, denunciations of Catholic-backed pro-life groups for "interfering" in the national debate about the creation of human/animal embryos -- we remember. Centuries ago, we were set examples of valor that every subsequent generation of Catholics can -- and must -- honor and cherish.

The Faith was passed on to us at this huge cost, and must not now be betrayed.

Joanna Bogle is an author and broadcaster living in London.

How to find God...

2008-04-24T14:42:00.005-05:00

Jen at Et Tu has an awesome post up about how to find God. I know, and agree with her, that prayer is absolutely the most important thing, but her first two steps are dang close to being as important. In fact, being humble and chucking cynicism might be prerequisites for prayer.

Check it out.

They never give up...

2008-04-24T08:10:00.003-05:00

I'll return to lighter fare eventually, but in the meantime, I'm in a pessimistic mood about ecumenical relations. Things like this certainly don't help.

I was reading an article about a priest who was trying to set some kind of ballooning record in Brazil. Bad weather blew him out to sea, however, and it's likely he's now dead. (They found the balloons floating in the ocean). Here's the article.

Here's the first comment after the story:

The one thing he didn't take with him was a bible **wonder why not**
Amanda, Hamilton Island, australia

I now want to revise something I've said repeatedly, in a lighter, more ecumenical spirit: No, these people really do worship the Bible or "put it above Christ" as they're fond of saying about Catholics and X, (X being anything from saints to scapulars).

Why didn't he bring a Bible? Well, sweetheart, a couple of reasons I can think of off the top of my head: In addition to making a really crappy flotation device, it also has nothing to say about meteorology, airborne survival tactics, desalinization techniques or much else of practical use while YOU'RE FLYING THROUGH THE AIR SUSPENDED BY HUNDREDS OF BALLOONS! The Bible is NOT a magic talisman, a lucky charm or even a manual for Christianity.

The implication is clear--the priest didn't bring a Bible because Catholics don't read them. This is a perfect example of the kind of one-note fundamentalism that makes more people Buddhists and New Agers.

Pathetic.

Ignorance + arrogance = Derb (and anti-Catholicism)

2008-04-23T14:52:00.005-05:00

There's a debate going on (if you can call it that) over at National Review's The Corner between John Derbyshire, recently self-outed agnostic (or is it now full-blown atheist?) and and, it seems, everyone else. The discussion? It's hard to pin it down, but Derb bascially seems to insist that the Church has "changed its beliefs" over time, and the pope is therefore a hypocrite for taking shots at relativism. His posts reveal that he has almost no idea what he's talking about regarding Catholicism. This is very, very common whenever the topic of the Church comes up in conversation, even among Catholics.

Ramesh Ponnuru's latest response sums up how I feel about these debates these days. It can basically be summed up with "what's the point?" Really, what is the point? Another question: why does someone who obviously has no interest in learning about that which they criticize keep popping off about the topic? I guess the answers may be obvious: gloating pride, self-importance, affinity for sophistry, etc.

Anyway, here's Ponnuru's response with some thoughts:

One Last Time [Ramesh Ponnuru]

A note, particularly for our Christian and even more particularly for our Catholic readers: I suspect that many of you think that when someone is spouting misinformed, foolish comments about your faith, you should try to engage him with an assumption of good will. You should write on the assumption that he is sincerely interested in clearing up misunderstandings, figuring out your position, and if necessary critiquing it intelligently, at which point you can continue the conversation.

This is one of the major reasons I've taken a break from posting at Sophia House and other online haunts. SH is one of the better ones. In fact, it's The BEST, in my opinion, but after a while it seems like no progress is ever made. The same questions and debates come up again and again. After a while, whether debating online or in "slow time," you might realize that you're being interrogated by someone with no particular goal other than to pass the time. Friendlier interlocutors (as many of the posters at Sophia House are) may simply consider your beliefs odd curiosities. Your answers may just be entertainment. Why else, or how else, could the same questions be asked time and again? I have terrible memory retention, but I tend to remember the things I'm passionately interested in. I only seem to remember the things I've worked for. I've read probably billions of words in my life, but if I didn't work to understand them, they went down the memory hole just as fast as a lead ball. So, when someone asks me the same question I've already answered a thousand times, I know that I'm not talking with someone who is searching for truth. This puts a tremendous strain on friendships, especially those founded in cyberspace.

The other end of the spectrum is more crowded. This is where you'll find most people--those who don't give a damn about what you really believe, and incessantly poke and prod and pry until they find perceived cracks in what you believe. They'll do it under a faux presumption of joviality, but they'll just as quickly rip the strawmen they create to shreds if it'll score a few points. I'm mainly thinking of places like the "Christian" Research and Apologetics Ministry, or CARM. Actually, there isn't much camaraderie or joviality there. Places like that exist solely to flatter the egos of its members.

Either way, at some point you have to discern if your opponents (for lack of a better word) are really interested in anything you say or believe. This is the end-point of the debate, or should be.

So you might point out, for example, the Wikipedia does not adequately capture the nuances of theological issues related to the development of doctrine. That Benedict XVI, in assailing “relativism,” did not mean “the claim that people’s understanding of truth varies with time” but rather something like “the claim that there is no such thing as truth and that people who believe that there is are incipient dictators who must be repressed.”

My in-laws are guilty of this one. Particularly my father-in-law. (And I hate using the term "father" for a man who's unqualified to stand in my real father's shadow.) The last time we saw him in person, he said he was "researching Catholicism." I asked him what he was reading, and he said it was James White's book "The Roman Catholic Controversy." What was particularly shocking about that wasn't that he'd be reading an anti-Catholic's work--my "father"-in-law is an anti-Catholic, after all. What shocked me was his straight-faced admission that he was "researching," i.e. "learning about" Catholicism from one of the Church's most vociferous, virulent and prolific enemies. Where's the honesty in that?

Back on the "friendly disagreement" end of the spectrum you find people who, when faced with this or that Catholic doctrine, immediately go off in search of Web sites, books, lectures, etc., to refute it. Their first reaction is to find something to contradict the Church. I think the term "anti-Catholic" refers to a special class of people who have an emotional revulsion to anything Catholic. They often are paid for their work, but the term could also include people who spend an extraordinary amount of time sweating it out in various venues to tear down the Church. However, there's a term, I think, for people who aren't necessarily emotionally or ideologically invested in bringing down the Catholic Church, yet nonetheless feel threatened enough by it to reflexively oppose anything she teaches. I've been thinking of them as "contra-Catholics." I know, it's probably an arbitrary, imprecise term, but it seems to work. It seemed to describe some of the posters at Sophia House who, while honestly professing their innocence of Catholic-or-Catholicism hating, still acted very much like professional or amateur anti-Catholics. No Catholic belief is too small or insignificant to seek a rebuttal for...

That even if Catholic teaching had changed over time, that fact would have nothing to do with Benedict’s criticism. That William F. Buckley Jr.’s quote manifestly had to do with liturgy and not doctrine. That the consistency of Church teaching on birth control cannot be judged on the basis of the practices of self-described Catholics, any more than the consistency of Church teaching on the Trinity (a rather more important matter) could be judged on the basis of a comparison of the results of a fourth-century poll and a current one. (My guess is that only a minority of Catholics, then or now, would be able to give a coherent account at all—proving that the Church has no teaching on the Trinity?)

I see this a lot, too. No Catholic hypocrite is too outrageous not to associate with Catholicism as a whole. It's an easy distinction to make, that of "Cafeteria Catholics" and those honestly trying to live the Faith, but it hardly matters. If some superstitious Catholics bury a statue of St. Joseph upside down in their yards in order to sell their houses faster, then that is proof that the whole Church is a superstitious mess.

So you send in thoughtful emails, sometimes ones you have spent some time working on. Congratulations: You have given John Derbyshire an opportunity to call the Pope a hypocrite on the basis of one badly misunderstood Wikipedia entry. Derbyshire says, openly and repeatedly, that he is not interested in learning anything about the church he is criticizing. He sneers at how long your emails were. I say to you again: It is a mistake to engage Derbyshire when he writes in this vein. He is trying to provoke, irritate, and wound you, not to join in a search for truth. And then he will complain that people have been provoked, or suggest that people are being thin-skinned about a bit of jollity.

Indeed. The worst thing a Catholic can do is be offended when someone intentionally or lazily misrepresents your beliefs. "I'm just joking" doesn't mean a hell of a lot when your interlocutor has said time and again that they have no interest in understanding what you believe.

Civility does not mean volunteering to be a punching bag. We should give people the benefit of the doubt. But when we have concluded that their intent is malign, charity does not obligate us to pretend otherwise or even to refrain from saying so. In short, my letter-writing and posting friends, consult Matthew 7:6.

Exactly.

Index of Catholic Quotations

2008-04-23T14:48:00.000-05:00

From Phat Catholic.

The man I want to be...

2008-04-22T08:05:00.003-05:00

The Anchoress has a great post up on what a super-husband looks like. This is what I aspire to, and sometimes, I hear my wife talking about me like this.

On a related note, it just now occurred to me that I named one of the shortcuts on my desktop "Shortcut to Development," Development being my department. O, how I wish I had had a shortcut to development about 20 years ago...

Question of the Day--

2008-04-22T07:22:00.002-05:00

Here's my question of the day. Feel free to chime in with answers, comments, requests for clarification.

Let's say it takes a supreme effort to get up earlier every morning to make your lunch, which is never anything fancy, usually consisting of just a sandwich and, if you've been really enterprising, a pop ("soda" here on the East Coast). Let's say that you put a lot of work into a ham and swiss sandwich one day, and you look forward to munching it later at lunch. Let's say it's so big that it takes two sandwich bags to contain it, and while the seal is imperfect, it's better than nothing.

Now, let's say that on your way to depositing this thick, hammy, cheesy treat in your department's small fridge, the two-sandwich-bag-solution backfires, not only not securing the sandwich completely, but actually making it harder to grasp. Said sandwich slips from slippery sandwich bag and lands on the carpet of a high-traffic area of the office. When you go to pick it up, you inadvertently scrap bare, naked ham across the carpet.

Upon inspection you can find no extra hairs, dirt, grit or soilage of any kind. Now, here's your question: Do you still eat it?

This is my dilemma today. I've got four hours to decide, and maybe it's fatherhood talking, but whether I go hunt for a new sandwich may depend entirely on what the weather is like by noon.

Discuss.

Everything is personal

2008-04-22T06:56:00.002-05:00

I saw this rant by Nora Ephron at the Huffington Post over at NRO.

White Men

This is an election about whether the people of Pennsylvania hate blacks more than they hate women. And when I say people, I don't mean people, I mean white men. How ironic is this? After all this time, after all these stupid articles about how powerless white men are and how they can't even get into college because of overachieving women and affirmative action and mean lady teachers who expected them to sit still in the third grade even though they were all suffering from terminal attention deficit disorder — after all this, they turn out (surprise!) to have all the power. (As they always did, by the way; I hope you didn't believe any of those articles...)

To put it bluntly, the next president will be elected by them: the outcome of Tuesday's primary will depend on whether they go for Hillary or Obama, and the outcome of the general election will depend on whether enough of them vote for McCain. A lot of them will: white men cannot be relied on, as all of us know who have spent a lifetime dating them. And McCain is a compelling candidate, particularly because of the Torture Thing. As for the Democratic hope that McCain's temper will be a problem, don't bet on it. A lot of white men have terrible tempers, and what's more, they think it's normal...

It shouldn't, but it cracked me up. That's REALLY the point of the story, isn't it? It always comes back to race, class, gender, and the fact that she can't find a decent man.

Feminism is funny sometimes.

A dog didn't bark in the night...

2008-04-21T14:35:00.000-05:00

From now on, I'll have my camera grafted to my hand.

My son's earlier smiles and laughter may have been, I must admit, a bit premature. While the expressions and sounds certainly resembled smiles and laughter, poops and toots did soon follow, leading me to believe there was a causal relationship.

However, this morning as I was eating his tummy and little feets, there followed a sustained grin and expression that I can only interpret as saying "I don't know what you're doing, scratchy faced-bottle-bringing-food-dispenser, but it curiously amuses me, whatever 'amusement' is." And then he didn't poop.

Taking stock...

2008-04-20T11:59:00.003-05:00

I'm starting to wonder if I should refrain from posting at The Sophia House (link...somewhere around here). I think I've mentioned it before, but I've spent a lot of time there--a LOT. Before that it was Protest Warrior, which went down, and has since been resurrected as a haven for Libertarians and others who are basically atheistic materialists. Sophia House started out as a noble idea--a place for people of different creeds and faith traditions to discuss this or that. In other words, it's a message board for people who hate message boards.

So far, I've posted more than 8,000 times there. This has been, professionally speaking, a colossal waste of my time. Socially speaking, it's been great, and I think it's helped me to become a better, more "tolerant" man. But I've got a problem--I don't know if I'm being myself there anymore.

Not that there's anything particularly great about being myself--I'm a mediocre, average man of crude character, at best. But to improve, you should probably know where you need to start from. This is where Sophia House has been very helpful.

That's beside the point, though. What I'm getting at is that after four or five years now, (combined PW and SH time), the same characters and I have said just about everything there is to say, at least as far as our knowledge and talents go. If we were more committed to getting "deeper," we'd have a great many things to discuss. But I'm starting to think it's impossible. Our First Principles seem to be different, and no matter how we try to make the same things sound different, to spark conversation by looking at things differently, it all just sounds the same. The effort of keeping it light and inoffensive is killing me.

So, it leads me to wonder if I'm sinning by being a judgmental, triumphalistic blowhard, or if I'm sinning by not "pushing harder." I really don't know.

I can't do small talk very well anymore. But I also know that I know almost nothing. Pop-apologetics is fine for a while, but if that's done exclusively, you're almost guaranteed to lose touch with the One you should be fighting for in the first place. I know I've certainly lost touch with Him. I still sense His presence, but I feel like I'm facing the wrong direction.

I already know the answer I'm stalling from expressing out loud: I need to take a leave of absence from SH for a while, at least. Maybe not a goodbye, but definitely a vacation. I've got a lot of work to do, and I'm not doing it when I'm thinking about what's going on in the 'House. I've got business to run and establish (ironically in that order), a family to take care of, a hundred thousand dollars to raise for work, and about a hundred thousand projects to take care of at home.

And then there's prayer. I've got to learn to do that again. That's probably the clearest indicator that I've gone horribly off track. Even my Mass-time prayers are superficial, at best. That old "Catholic agnosticism" has come back with a vengeance.

So, here's my first real prayer in a while: Lord, give me the strength to seek you. Help me to find the way again...

Pope Benedict XVI

2008-04-17T21:50:00.001-05:00

More later, but we hung out at Catholic university today:

Pro-Abortion Pelosi, Kerry plan to receive Communion at Papal Mass

2008-04-16T13:48:00.004-05:00

This, I predict, is going to "unleash hell."

Pro-Abortion Pelosi, Kerry Plan to Take Communion at Papal Mass

By Tim Graham | April 16, 2008 - 12:11 ET

The "Reliable Source" gossips at the Washington Post reported Wednesday morning that not only will Speaker Nancy Pelosi attend several White House events around the papal visit, but also "Look for Pelosi and Sen. John Kerry, who plan to take Communion along with 46,000 faithful at the service." Liberals in the media won't see this as scandalous news, but traditional Catholics do.

Politicians who vote and speak out in support of abortion and homosexuality are promoting sexual sin and are dramatically opposed to Church teaching. The American Life League made a newspaper ad asking Pope Benedict to deny Communion to 21 of the "most egregious offenders" on abortion, including Pelosi and Kerry on their list.

Several American bishops have been presented as "controversial" by the media for proclaiming in 2004 that John Kerry would be refused Communion if he came to receive it in their churches. The TV networks warned of a backlash against the church from people who thought Kerry was being "bullied" by bishops. He was a "devout Catholic," they proclaimed, despite his advocacy of libertine-left positions.

Then there's Speaker Pelosi, who proclaimed last year to CNSNews.com that an ad for a San Francisco leather festival mocking a painting of Christ's Last Supper with sex toys and fetish gear wasn't anti-religious: "I do not believe that Christianity has been harmed by the Folsom Street Fair advertising." But she came into office being hailed by the media as a "devout Catholic" as well.

The pope's first address and comments by Fr. Z.

2008-04-16T10:59:00.001-05:00

Here.

Clearance granted

2008-04-16T10:06:00.003-05:00

...from both my J.O.B. and the Opus Dei Orbital Assault Platform's Secret Service Division to take Friday off and comb D.C. for anti-Catholic activity. Yes!

Bushisms

2008-04-16T10:01:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure, but I think I heard President Bush say "Pox TEE-cum." My Latin's a little rusty, but I heard the EWTN anchor snicker.

The secretary just made The List.

2008-04-16T09:58:00.001-05:00

The receptionist just made "The List." I was watching the opening ceremonies for the pope's visit out in the lobby, but because she's a spoiled brat who has a little allergy problem, she muted it and said "I've had enough of this bullcrap."

Welcome to America, Pope Benedict XVI!

2008-04-16T09:57:00.001-05:00

Come down to Old Town, Alexandria if you've got some time. I'd love to share a pint with you. Maybe get a pie down at Bugsie's.

Gettin' born again

2008-04-12T10:45:00.001-05:00

Documenting anti-Catholic moonbattery...

2008-04-09T13:01:00.003-05:00

So, as some of you may have heard, Pope Benedict XVI is coming to D.C. Naturally I think this is fantastic, and my excitement just...just...overcomes the intense bitterness I feel at being unable to obtain a ticket for the papal Mass in the new stadium.

However!

There's still some fun to be had. I know that Fred "God hates fags" Phelps and his anti-Catholic crew will be in town. There's some question as to whether they'll actually show up, though. After all, they regularly say they'll be at some slain Marine's funeral to protest his support for a country that protects and promotes sodomites, but then they don't. (Probably wise on their part. They must surely know that even the most liberal judge and jury in the country isn't going to have sympathy for them if they get the snot stomped out of them.) But this is a dream-come-true for them. This is the Woodstock of anti-Catholicism. I'd be shocked if they didn't show.

And judging by a quick perusal of CARM, anti-Catholic central, more than a few of the relatively sane anti-Catholics will be there. No doubt handing out tracts, holding their "B16 is the Antichrist" signs, etc.

Good times...

I'll be at various points along the route, too, armed with video and still cameras to expose the moonbattery. I doubt I'll get in anyone's faces--I'm a coward that way. Or, maybe not so much a coward, but I know that when it comes down to it, they're not evil, brainwashed, or any of the things they say we are. Maybe I'll chat with a few, but for the most part I want to get a record of the crazy things these people will do or say in their quest to prove their moral and spiritual superiority.

It'll be fun. ;-)

Testing II

2008-04-08T09:15:00.002-05:00

testing III

What is this cryptic message? Simple: it's something I downloaded to my micro-laptop, or "smartphone." Now I can blog from anywhere I can get a cell/data signal, which means the frequency of my posts will increase something like 300 percent (roughly three times a month, AT LEAST).

So, if I'm so inclined, I can report on liturgical abuses almost instantaneously. If I'm being mugged, I can post video--LIVE! Of course, mobile Internet still being relatively primitive, by the time I log on I may be dead, but I'm sure that would be a first, too. Stay tuned to find out!

Apologetical gotcha!

2008-04-07T15:46:00.000-05:00

To all those who say infant baptism does nothing, last night Joseph slept almost all night.

Hah!

Joseph begins his life as a Catholic...

2008-04-07T09:47:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Faith, little one...

I'll have some video up hopefully by the weekend. My friend and former fellow 8th grade CCD teacher Sarah did a great job with the camera. Unfortunately, she filmed almost the entire thing, which makes the editing job that much harder. ;-) (Thank you, Sarah, for filming it, though. I had planned to do it myself somehow, but I'm glad you volunteered. Or did we volunteer you?)

Similarly, thanks you Clayton for working the still camera.

All in all it went well. Two other babies were baptized, both girls, one of whom was a redhead. Not surprisingly, she was loud and an attention-hog. Heh. Joseph slept through most of it after eating almost four ounces of milk. He graciously opted NOT to puke or poop on my suit, and his vintage baptismal gown remained unsoiled. He was a little bit shocked when Fr. K. poured the water on his head, and unfortunately the video doesn't quite capture the comic look of alarm on his face from all three pours. It went something like: "I baptize you in the name of the Father," (gasp!) "The Son," (gawk!), "and the Holy Spirit" (ack!)

Everyone kept asking "Does this kid ever cry?"

Does this kid ever cry...

I'll have to invite them over to our place at 3AM...

Anyway, if he's happy about his new sainthood, he's not talking. Kind of same-old, same-old for him, although his appetite has increased significantly...

Testimony Index

2008-04-02T15:40:00.003-05:00

Part I -- Sketches of the Early Years

1 -- Chi Rho

Testimony, Part I

2008-04-02T15:28:00.005-05:00

On my favorite message board, one of the folks suggested we write out our "stories." Not testimonies, per se, but the story of our spiritual walk. (I think there's some distinction between that and a testimony, but I'm having a hard time coming up with it right now). I tried to keep it short, but it's now running to ten pages and I haven't even gotten to the Franciscan University years. So, I scribbled a shorter version and posted that, but I wanted to come back to the original because it's been dredging up some interesting stuff. I wrote the first ten pages in about two hours, non-stop, which is unusual for me to do these days.

This is natural blog material, so I hereby kick of the "Testimony" series of Life as a Catholic. It's about where I'm from and how I got here, wherever here is. I'll be posting it in bits and pieces, presented mostly in a vignette format because this is just how I remember things--images, scenes, all seen through a glass darkly. Hopefully it makes sense.

Part I Sketches of the Early Years.

My earliest religious/spiritual memory is of sitting by myself in a pew to the left of the altar of a Catholic church in Portland, Ore. My grandfather, a former priest, now served as a deacon, I think. He was a round-faced man with thick, black-rimmed glasses – a little like an aged Charlie Brown.

I didn’t know anything about priests, deacons or hierarchies at this time. I was maybe five years old.

I only remember one thing about that moment: The chi rho symbol adorning the front of the altar. I didn’t know much about that, either, but by then Grampa had probably been reading me the Chronicles of Narnia – I knew about swords and battles. Grampa had given me his big Boy Scout knife (unsharpened, but still…) In my tiny hand that knife looked like a sword, and to me, the chi rho looked nothing so much like a sword on a downward arc striking something hard – perhaps the scales of a dragon, or the armor of one of the evil Calormen. The X was sparks, or lightning, or magic, and as the sunlight from the open church door illuminated it, some battle was joined.

+++

Oh, I remember one more thing about that church. I remember thin columns stretching up, Up and UP to an intricate ceiling. I remember the weight of all that space up there. It felt bigger inside than outside.

+++

Bald-faced triumphalism

2008-03-18T14:25:00.000-05:00

Just the way I like it!

h/t Mark Shea

E-GADS this is creepy...

2008-03-17T12:38:00.002-05:00

Are there people out there who actually respond to this? I wonder what these kids would think--or their parents, presuming they have some who care--if they knew that Obama would support a woman's right to kill them even outside of the womb?

An 800-year-old Jedi Master

2008-03-15T16:38:00.002-05:00

My son, Yoda Baby.

From the people who brought you beer

2008-03-14T16:26:00.001-05:00

You may notice this curious new banner on the side of the blog. It's for Mystic Monk Coffee, and it's really, really good. As a buddy of mine put it, "It's good enough to drink without sugar and cream!" And that's from a Lutheran.

I concur, although I do like it with sugar and cream. It's fantastic coffee--far better than that Starbucks swill, and the ideology behind Mystic Monk Coffee is, in my humble opinion, much more enlightening.

Click it! Click it now! If you end up buying some, I get a couple of cents here and there. So please, buy lots. ;-)

A miracle? A sign? Both?

2008-03-12T12:43:00.002-05:00

So, I've been trying to figure out how to grow this little moving business I have on the side. It doesn't make a lot of money, but it helps us to approach financial stasis.

One of my ideas has been to franchise it somehow, but I haven't moved that idea very far for several reasons, the primary of which is simple fear and pessimism. But this morning as I was about to leave for work, my wife said "Why don't you franchise the moving business?"

"We'll see," I basically said, which is short-hand for "I'd really like to, but I'm starting to struggle against the inevitable forces of inertia and doubt that experience shows to be too powerful."

However, as I was coming out of 7/11 with my coffee, a man in the next parking space came over and said, "Is this your truck?" (I had magnetic signs on the sides advertising my business). "Yup," I said.

He had nothing but praise for the "great idea." This is a comment I've heard several times now from many different people. So, I told him a little bit about it (he wasn't from the area and didn't need a move--he was just being friendly.) I told him about my franchise idea, and he said, "Great idea! I used to sell franchises for a major auto parts store. Give me a call if you have any questions about franchising."

This was three minutes after my wife told me I should consider franchising...

"How'd you come up with the idea?" he asked.

"Well," I said, "We'd be facing foreclosure if I didn't do this job on the side..."

"I see. You should talk to my son. He helps people avoid foreclosure. Here's his phone number..."

Fascinating. And here I've been in the dumps about my relationship with God. I'd been slipping--farther than I've been in a while--back into a sort of Catholic agnosticism. That basically means that I believe in God, but our relationship to him is actually pretty distant. Whether he sends beneficial miracles or "trials," our prayers matter little. He gives us what we need--unfortunately, we rarely know exactly what we REALLY need.

It's a real drag.

Anyway, we'll see what happens. Crossing fingers...

A tale of two Josephs

2008-03-09T13:11:00.001-05:00

I love both, but if possible, I'd like to see more of this one:

But for 12 hours last night, we only got to see this one:

What he's NOT doing right now...

2008-03-07T02:29:00.003-05:00

As I post this, he's NOT being this cute. It's 2:30AM and my beautiful little angel has been possessed by Satan. I'm only able to write this now because Grace is taking over the futile duty of calming him down. We've tried everything--feeding, burping, changing, walking, rocking, leaving him alone. I finally had to just lay him down and walk away because while I've avoided my breaking point lo these many months and trials, a shrieking, irrational beast who's both hungry and refuses to eat may just crack me wide open. I've been told that I "will be" a good father and that I "am" a good father. I like the compliment, but right now it's all I can do to keep from putting my fist through one of those nice, thin balsa wood closet doors we have...

The Joseph Update

2008-03-06T09:10:00.002-05:00

More soon, but in the meantime, here's yet another blog I made. This one is for the "Joseph Update."

Happy Birthday, Joseph Gordon

2008-03-03T16:05:00.000-05:00

Baby update

2008-03-03T08:24:00.001-05:00

Epidural administered, but small dilation. It's fonna be awhile...

The baby train's a-comin'....

2008-03-03T07:58:00.000-05:00

In hospital at 3:00. It's now 8:00. Epidural has been administered.

Heading to the hospital

2008-03-03T02:40:00.003-05:00

It's 2:40 in the morning on March 3, 2008. My wife and I have both showered, we're packed, and she's getting dressed and ready. The contractions are getting closer together and they're getting much more intense.

I'm proud of her. In many ways she's a real tough girl. But when it comes to physical pain, she's always, well, she likes the baby talk of boo-boos and what-not. I wasn't so sure she'd do well through labor. But she's smiling, focused, determined.

I, on the other hand, have been fairly detached up until now. Even bored. But now that it's real... Let's just say that I'm not a big fan of this powerlessness. All I can do is hold her hand and offer encouraging slogans that, if our roles were reversed, would probably make me want to punch myself.

I hope that makes sense.

Anyway, this kid couldn't have come at a more inconvenient time, but there's just no negotiating with him. Off we go...

Testing email blogging

2008-03-02T09:58:00.001-05:00

It works!

William F. Buckley, Jr. R.I.P.

2008-02-27T22:11:00.003-05:00

As a reluctant news and politics junkie, I work in an atmosphere of pundits and nut-roots, mostly of the right-wing persuasion. So today was a very big day. Not exactly sad, but certainly sombre. Buckley, as many people have pointed out all day long, was a giant.

I never met him. I've orbited a few of the more massive celestial objects in the Washington conservative firmament, but our paths never crossed. No reason why they should. But his presence was felt. Lately, most of us on the right have compared those who would bear our standard to Ronald Reagan, but always, everywhere, the intellect and presence of WFB was there. Without Buckley, there might not have been a Reagan.

It surprised me how much his passing affected me. I'm not overly sentimental, after all. I loathe people who glom onto the suffering of others in order to raise themselves somehow. But that's the kind of reach he had, I guess. Even the lefty blogosphere paid its due respects by keeping quiet.

Anyway, God bless, Mr. Buckley. You will be missed.

The problem with the Church today

2008-02-27T14:34:00.002-05:00

Is people like this:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/107603

People like this ignoramus who hold on to their Churchy traditions in order to grasp at some kind of spirituality-without-obligations just don't get it. I wish they'd wake up, but until then, I wish they'd just leave.

There, I said it.