If you have any time at all, do yourself a tremendous favor and read Kansas Catholic's book. It's on his blog at www.kansascatholic.blogspot.com.
It is spectacular. What I like is that the story carries me along with it. It's funny. It's sad. It's interesting. It's moral. It's heroic. It's about the Church. It's not preachy. It's.................
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Did You Miss Me?
I've been restricting myself from blogging lately. Somehow, some way, for some reason, I managed to twist and strain my shoulder to the point that typing was painful. So I stopped. My shoulder still hurts, but I have a bottle of knock-off Tylenol. So typing is now doable.
I've been using a voice activated word processing program some. It's great. But I have to get used to something totally different. That's challenging. But "I can do it, Yes I can, I'm...."
If you go to our meetings, I've been consistently gone. It has to do with weather. If I slip and fall, I could be in real trouble. I'm a bit unsteady on my feet for a lot of reasons. Ice renders me "unsteadier".
Forewarning the five or six people in the civilized world who read this blog regularly: If you come up to me and tell me about someone who has my set of symptoms and what awful thing happened to them, I MAY BITE YOUR HEAD OFF AND HAND IT TO YOU!!!!! Thank you, Jesus! Alleluia.
Don't take it personally. Er...Do take it personally. Also, don't ask if I'm a victim soul. I am in favor of avoiding all avoidable suffering. I'll offer up all unavoidable suffering. I'm doing this every time I can work it into a conversation. I probably won't do this with grandchildren under 12 or with my wife. I love the grandchildren, and I already do enough things to annoy my wife.
She is still the most phenomenal person I've ever met. For some reason, she seems to
still have patience with me. Could be I taught her to be patient.
How are you with patience? My belief is that most of us want others to be patient with our dumb moves while we skewer anyone who crosses us as being some grade of pond scum.
Have you ever wonder if most people who think this have the gift of discerning of spirits as really having a critical spirit?
My shoulder hurts.
What would Francis do? He'd be patient. He'd pray for all the politicians on both sides of the latrine...er...aisle. He'd point them to Jesus.
I'm against violence as a political answer. I hate to be reduced to trying to buy a politician. That's not Franciscan. That leaves intercession. Maybe we could parcel out our political leaders, so everyone got prayed for. Those we don't pray for and who later fail could be designated as "They didn't have a prayer."
Yeah, it snowed. Get over it.
I've been using a voice activated word processing program some. It's great. But I have to get used to something totally different. That's challenging. But "I can do it, Yes I can, I'm...."
If you go to our meetings, I've been consistently gone. It has to do with weather. If I slip and fall, I could be in real trouble. I'm a bit unsteady on my feet for a lot of reasons. Ice renders me "unsteadier".
Forewarning the five or six people in the civilized world who read this blog regularly: If you come up to me and tell me about someone who has my set of symptoms and what awful thing happened to them, I MAY BITE YOUR HEAD OFF AND HAND IT TO YOU!!!!! Thank you, Jesus! Alleluia.
Don't take it personally. Er...Do take it personally. Also, don't ask if I'm a victim soul. I am in favor of avoiding all avoidable suffering. I'll offer up all unavoidable suffering. I'm doing this every time I can work it into a conversation. I probably won't do this with grandchildren under 12 or with my wife. I love the grandchildren, and I already do enough things to annoy my wife.
She is still the most phenomenal person I've ever met. For some reason, she seems to
still have patience with me. Could be I taught her to be patient.
How are you with patience? My belief is that most of us want others to be patient with our dumb moves while we skewer anyone who crosses us as being some grade of pond scum.
Have you ever wonder if most people who think this have the gift of discerning of spirits as really having a critical spirit?
My shoulder hurts.
What would Francis do? He'd be patient. He'd pray for all the politicians on both sides of the latrine...er...aisle. He'd point them to Jesus.
I'm against violence as a political answer. I hate to be reduced to trying to buy a politician. That's not Franciscan. That leaves intercession. Maybe we could parcel out our political leaders, so everyone got prayed for. Those we don't pray for and who later fail could be designated as "They didn't have a prayer."
Yeah, it snowed. Get over it.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Overprivatizations
I seem to think that the world revolves around me. I give humility a bad name. Somehow, I stay tightly focused on how things affect me and mine. Only rarely do I detach enough to transcend the temporal.
You folks may not have had this experience, but I have to work to stay out of self-pity some days. I think it's easier to do if I just run from those things that are either sinful or questionable. It's too easy to proclaim that "I can handle it". Then I take that long fall from the heights of my own ego.I really don't handle temptation well. To stand and negotiate with it is stupid. Example: Television. Gluttony.
I have no hope beyond Jesus and my relationship with Him. I can skip prayer. Never quite make it to confession. Bypass a Rosary. Skip Mass. Leave Mass early. Not be able to remember the last time I read Scripture. Bad mouth a priest. Complain about a tradition. And somehow pretend I'm Holy.
Or I can kneel broken by the idea that God loves me. And I have no idea why He does.
It's a whole lot easier to talk about how you should humble yourselves than it is for me to actually humble myself. But I have little grounds to criticize you until I get things right with the almighty.
You folks may not have had this experience, but I have to work to stay out of self-pity some days. I think it's easier to do if I just run from those things that are either sinful or questionable. It's too easy to proclaim that "I can handle it". Then I take that long fall from the heights of my own ego.I really don't handle temptation well. To stand and negotiate with it is stupid. Example: Television. Gluttony.
I have no hope beyond Jesus and my relationship with Him. I can skip prayer. Never quite make it to confession. Bypass a Rosary. Skip Mass. Leave Mass early. Not be able to remember the last time I read Scripture. Bad mouth a priest. Complain about a tradition. And somehow pretend I'm Holy.
Or I can kneel broken by the idea that God loves me. And I have no idea why He does.
It's a whole lot easier to talk about how you should humble yourselves than it is for me to actually humble myself. But I have little grounds to criticize you until I get things right with the almighty.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Overgeneralizations
It is so easy to decide that everyone over fifty who forgets something is falling headlong into some variety of dementia. Now many have, some are, and several will be. But we must be careful of always generalizing others' situations. Mostly, we see ourselves and our situations as explainable and we see others as clinically significant.
Roughly, that translates into I'm OK, and You're not OK.
I'm reminded of all our politicians. We quickly justify the behaviors of all of those who happen to share the same opinion as we have on a specific issue. And just as quickly damn all those who have opinions we might not share.
For example, I tend to criticize everything that a politician says who is pro-abortion. I also tend to accept everything that a politician says who is pro-life. It has been brought to my attention that I might be wiser to read and study what each politician says about a specific issue. If a politician in my state is pro-abort, I will, vote against him (or her) in a general election for that very issue, but I might approve of him voting for a particular tax cut proposal.
I sometimes have chosen to contact such politicians and tell them how I approve of one of their positions but that my support does not go as far as wanting them to stay in office.
This is an effort to construct positions that are situationally specific. I could even imagine the existence of a President who was a phenomenal public speaker and apparently good father. Those are important characteristics for me. But I could imagine myself frightened about the continued existence of our country as a result of his actions.
An over-generalization would be to dislike everything he said or did or to like everything he said or did based on speaking skills or parenting style.
Prudence would be to respect the office the individual held and to develop opinions about the positions the official presented. And get him out of office as soon as possible.
As a Franciscan, I want to pray for my president or congressman. I want to love him with the love of God, but I don't want to agree with everything he does just because he is president.
Is there some similarity here when considering one's priest? How about husband? Supervisor at work? Bishop?
I'm not always certain how to do this without slipping into calumny or detraction. How do you do it?
Roughly, that translates into I'm OK, and You're not OK.
I'm reminded of all our politicians. We quickly justify the behaviors of all of those who happen to share the same opinion as we have on a specific issue. And just as quickly damn all those who have opinions we might not share.
For example, I tend to criticize everything that a politician says who is pro-abortion. I also tend to accept everything that a politician says who is pro-life. It has been brought to my attention that I might be wiser to read and study what each politician says about a specific issue. If a politician in my state is pro-abort, I will, vote against him (or her) in a general election for that very issue, but I might approve of him voting for a particular tax cut proposal.
I sometimes have chosen to contact such politicians and tell them how I approve of one of their positions but that my support does not go as far as wanting them to stay in office.
This is an effort to construct positions that are situationally specific. I could even imagine the existence of a President who was a phenomenal public speaker and apparently good father. Those are important characteristics for me. But I could imagine myself frightened about the continued existence of our country as a result of his actions.
An over-generalization would be to dislike everything he said or did or to like everything he said or did based on speaking skills or parenting style.
Prudence would be to respect the office the individual held and to develop opinions about the positions the official presented. And get him out of office as soon as possible.
As a Franciscan, I want to pray for my president or congressman. I want to love him with the love of God, but I don't want to agree with everything he does just because he is president.
Is there some similarity here when considering one's priest? How about husband? Supervisor at work? Bishop?
I'm not always certain how to do this without slipping into calumny or detraction. How do you do it?
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