Be Not Idle

• The cookie jar is chipped.
• The toilet seat is cracked clean through. I suspected the involvement of circus animals, such as elephants – a charge the smallest fry vehemently denied.
• There are footprints on the walls.
• A sore throat lozenge, placed on the white bureau for safe-keeping, has stained the surface pink.
• Kernels of buttered popcorn littered the bottom of my purse, evidentally deposited during the Movie Theatre Fiasco a few days ago.
• Butterfly-patterned panties mysteriously appeared in the laundry hamper. 
• Theme music from Avatar: The Last Airbender is stuck in my head.
• My heart aches from child-deprivation.

I put off reviewing the double book of Theology of Her Body/Theology of His Body by Jason Evert. It’s not that it was a long, difficult read. It’s a pithy book. With footnotes, resource, and “about the author” pages, the girl’s version has just 52 pages. (The boy’s version is shorter.)

Instead, the problem is that I read the foreward (by Christopher West) and the Introduction for each book, then thought, “Isn’t this a little theologically dense for a teen?”

In fact, it is.  These books are not the sort to hand to a teenager and say, “Here, read this.” Adult guidance is needed.

But this dual text is good for a parent to use as a tool, or for a parochial school to use as a text.

Of the two sides, Theology of Her Body is the weaker. In part it’s because the Song of Songs is the reference point.  It may illuminate the mystery and beauty of feminity, but it’s still a metaphor. However, the section about modesty in dress alone is worth the price of the book.

Theology of His Body is stronger because Evert is a guy. Using the Book of Tobit as a reference point, he focuses on the strength of Man On a Mission. Evert’s dissection of manipulation and, conversely, the fear of commitment is excellent. He addresses homosexuality also, clearly and charitably.

This review was written as part of the Catholic book Reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Theology of Her Body and Theology of His Body.

• Every day is like a party – but no one wants to clean up the mess.
• He who showers last, showers coldest.
• Chores at home are work; chores at Auntie’s house are fun.
• Even in the House of Nonsense, the wise child takes off his shoes.

“The prayer station helps people see, whether it’s 9/11 or Chrysler or GM about to go into bankruptcy, we always share a need for God…. The station becomes a vehicle toward life change, not just offering a prayer.”  - Tom Grassano,  member of Urban Harvest Ministries

Christine Ferretti, a Detroit News reporter, wrote an interesting and well-balanced story. A nonprofit set up a prayer booth in Warren City Hall as a place for unemployed or financially-distressed people who might want prayers or spiritual comfort.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) has raised a hue and cry, but it sounds like Mayor Fouts isn’t giving in.    

As a former resident of Warren, where I had my first apartment, I opine that FFRF isn’t going to win the hearts and minds of residents.  The FFRF is based in Wisconsin, so perhaps their members are unaware that Michigan has been in a one-state recession for several years before the current economic downturn. As an added bonus, the GM Tech Center is in Warren.

Not that I’m trying to support FFRF’s agenda, but strictly as a practical and rational matter, its leadership should take a different tact. They could set up an atheistic alternative support booth for the unemployed and financially-teetering. Heck, they wouldn’t even have to rent it from City Hall – there are plenty of vacant buildings for rent!

Instead, the FFRF is providing a valuable advertisement for Christianity.  The Christians are letting people come to the booth of their own volition. They offer prayer, but they don’t force it on anyone.

In contrast, the FFRF isn’t concerning itself with the needs of the unemployed, let alone those most pathetic losers - those who seek spiritual comfort (aka “superstition”).  They’re more concerned with people who believe as they do, people who might be “uncomfortable” by public displays of (religious) affection.  They have a different take on the Establishment Clause** :

This is ridiculous. Prayer should be private. -  Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president

(Note to my non-Americentric readers: In the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, there is a clause that forbids Congress from establishing a state religion.)

1. Embarrassment is relative: The same boy who is embarrassed by hugs and kisses has NO qualms about dancing in the aisle of a grocery store.
2. Anything marked “unbreakable” or “tear-resistant” must be tested.
3. Everything can be a toy – including a folding chair and a backscratcher – but the best are a plain wooden yo-yo and a ribbon-and-block Jacob’s ladder. (I based the popularity on the number of fights over the toy.)
4. Birdseed + squirrels > Saturday morning cartoons
5. Possession might be 3/4 the law, but once you’ve convinced auntie to lend you a cute purse, it’s yours.

The Gospel is not merely a communication of things that can be known – it is one that makes things happen and is life-changing. The dark door of time, of the future, has been thrown open. The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life.

- Pope Benedict XVI, Saved in Hope ~ Spe salvi (2nd encyclical)

I coined the term “Contrarians” one day in a conversation with Baby Brother. It was a riff on the “Vulgarians” at the Michigan Renaissance Festival, a fictional royal family that was not only vulgar, but also cheated, insulted other families, etc.

In a similar way, Contrarians don’t just disagree with other people’s opinions. They seldom create anything of their own, yet when viewing the results of another person’s labor, they state (loudly) how it could have been done better. They throw no fabulous parties, but they somehow manage to attend the most popular (and disappointing) affairs. Continue Reading »

at 6am
the gun first pressed to her brow
ten years ago
by the editor of cosmopolitan magazine
all spandex and day glo
and by the creative consultants of sundry advertising companies
like grinning puppets in a row
and by the programme planners of itv rte and the bbc
no no no
went off
and the body she had starved for so long
to attain their image
to obey their decree
made tangled
made desolate
made broken
ceased to be

at 6am
jesus woke her from her sleep
that’s enough suffering for one lifetime
come with me
walking down d’olier street
they chatted like old friends
and she realised at last
that the rain is diamonds

The Heelers Diary is one of my favorite sites because it author, James Healy, is always surprising. I never know if he’s going to wax eloquent or embark on a flight of fancy. And then there’s the poetry…

Check it out. But don’t be fooled. His grandeous claim to the title of “Ireland’s Greatest Living Poet” is to obscure the fact that he really is a poet.

Another sad day in the war against the drug cartels in Mexico.

Gunmen ordered a priest and two seminarians out of their vehicle and shot them dead in a drug-plagued region of western Mexico, authorities said Monday.

The three were killed as they drove through the town of Arcelia in Guerrero state to nearby Ciudad Altamirano to organize a spiritual retreat, said the Archbishop of Acapulco, Felipe Aguirre Franco.

No word yet on their names.

UPDATE: They are Father Habacuc Hernandez Benitez, and seminarians Eduardo Oregon Benitez and Silvestre Gonzalez Cambrón. More at CNA.

Rabbi Dr. Morton H. Pomerantz, a chaplain for the State of New York, speaks truth to Obama’s power.

Obama’s clever construct comparing the mass genocide of six million Jews to the Palestinian struggle will not be lost on the estimated 100 million Muslims who tuned into to hear him.
(…)
At first blush Mr. Obama’s speech seemed rosy, optimistic — one that espoused tolerance and understanding. If you scratch the surface it is a dangerous document that history will view as a turning point for America and Israel — one that will lead to dangerous times ahead for both Jews and believing Christians.

The immediate danger posed by Obama’s speech is in its incredible re-writing of the history of Jews, Christians and Muslims from Medieval times to the present.

I was already tired of pop culture revisions of the Crusades (among other things), as well as the destruction of pre-Islamic antiquities by those who wish to re-write Middle Eastern history. But it’s something entirely worse when the President of the United States buys into it.

UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson doesn’t believe the Orwellian Newspeak. He fires several quotable quotes (including “Princeton – the New Guantanamo”). Here’s a sample, but check them all out:

“They” and “Some” did it, not me… (…) The President, the First Lady, and the Attorney General cannot begin a speech without “some say”, “there are those who believe,” or “I am not convinced by others who argue”—all followed by their own enlightened antitheses. We are perennially back to Michelle Obama’s “they” who raised the bar, or the nefarious “some” in the Bush-Cheney-Halliburton nexus that shredded the Constitution with military tribunals and renditions in order to steal Iraqi oil.

No one points out that almost every historical reference Obama invoked in Cairo—from the supposed Muslim role in great world discoveries to Islam fueling the Renaissance and Enlightenment to the Inquisition and Spain—was inflated, but, more importantly, always inflated from a politically-correct point of view.