Be Not Idle

Sister Toldjah brought up the subject of good and bad TV ads. I don’t watch a lot of TV, but I sometimes catch ads here and there. Dad told me about one of his favorites: a young baseball player who wants to be greatest hitter in the world… but finds a different calling.

The ad, titled “The Greatest”, was produced by The Foundation for a Better Life. They’re also responsible for uplifting billboards that have given me food for thought on the way to and from Port Huron. Browse their wonderful ads if you have a free moment.

Incidentally, my favorite ad of all time is the Faygo soda pop ad that featured the Boblo Island boat and the Faygo Pop song. 

Full disclosure: When asked to pick a book to review for the Catholic Company, I chose A Civilization of Love because I thought it would be an easy read. The author, Carl Anderson, is the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus - and to me, the K of C has always meant a bunch of hard-working guys who love a lot and do a lot. When Chris Cash read to me that the subtitle was “What Every Catholic Can Do to Transform the World”, I figured it would be a how-to book on community-building.

It is, but not in the way I thought.

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Bernie and Diane are humble, unpretentious people…. They had everything they ever wanted, they said. Except for a daughter. But the more they asked about Danielle, the more they didn’t want to know.

She was 8, but functioned as a 2-year-old. She had been left alone in a dank room, ignored for most of her life.

There have been some truly horrific stories about children in the news this summer. This story is about a neglectful mother and child abuse investigators who ignored signs, but it’s also hopeful.

http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article750838 .ece

The One-Word Survey

1. Where is your cell phone? purse

2. Your significant other? nonexistant

3. Your hair? blonde

4. Your mother? dynamo

5. Your father? jack-of-all-trades

6. Your favorite thing? friends

7. Your dreams last night? sporatic

8. Your favorite drink? coffee

9. Your dream/goal? Heaven

10. What room you are in? office

11. Your hobby? writing

12. Your fear? layoff

13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? here

14. Where were you last night? home

15. Something that you aren’t? sinister

16. Muffins? bleh

17. Wish list item? husband

18. Where you grew up? Michigan

19. Last thing you did? exam

20. What are you wearing? skort

21. Your TV? off

22. Your pets? neighbors’

23. Friends? crazy

24. Your life? good

25. Your mood? nervous

26. Missing someone? Mom

27. Your car? Saturn

28. Something you’re not wearing? jockstrap

29 Your favorite store? Bookblues

32. Your favorite color? red

33. When is the last time you laughed? today

34. Last time you cried? June

The Four-item Survey

A) Four places that I go to over and over: Port Huron, Waterford, Stratford, work

B) Four people who email me regularly: Keith, Anne, Michele, spam

C) My favorite places to eat: Riveria, AJ’s Salt Docks, Cheap Charlie’s, home

D) Four places I would like to go right now: Toronto, Mackinaw Island, Washington DC, Spain

E) Four TV shows I watch all the time? LOST… and nothing else, really, so I’m adding:

F) Four books I always re-read? The Mating Season (PG Wodehouse), The Hobbit (Tolkien), The Man Who Was Thursday (GK Chesterton), Peanuts Celebration (Charles Schultz)

I cannot seem to load my reviews onto it. I will try to e-mail myself from college or the library and see if that works.

Sometimes Charity needs a baseball bat. - Father Jim Lopez

I think it’s the first time in my adult life I’ve laughed in the confessional.  I worry about being uncharitable when standing up for my faith, but Father attempted to set me aright. He also directed me to the Sunday evening Mass, which he says at 7 pm in order to catch the dayworkers and boat crews that are out until evening.

The Gospel was about the multiplication of loaves and fish.

Father changed his homily for the evening Mass, as he had talked to a parishioner and gotten permission to use her family’s story. He spoke about a large family whose young son was suffering from a long illness which was difficult to diagnose. 

When news went around that he was sick and going to specialists, people began to show up with food: cooked meals for the whole family, groceries, etc. It lifted a burden off the family and it also taught them something: humility.

Father said that the family took pride in being self-sufficient. (I had to nod, because that seems to be the way with big Catholic families.) It was overwhelming, but they learned to humbly accept what God was doing for them through other people.

It was one of the best homilies ever.

Last night my sister and I were sitting in the den and I said to her, “I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a
bottle to keep me alive. That would be no quality of life at all… if that ever happens, just pull the plug.”

So she got up, unplugged the computer, and threw out my wine.

Of course, I laughed at this joke, but then I wondered if it were true. This sounds like something her sister would do to her - and my brother would do to me!

And in that spirit, evidentally, my history professor came up with the following:

 ”Mary Magdeline was from a wealthy family. Her uncle, Joseph of Arimethea, was wealthy enough to afford a very good tomb. He was also friendly with Pontius Pilate so…”

And that’s where my note-taking ends because it wasn’t even remotely funny anymore. I have absolutely no idea where he gets this crap from. He also lectured today (and previously) that “inferential reasoning” and “most Jewish scholars” say that Jesus definitely was married or the Saducees would have attacked him. 

I give up. I’ve asked him about his sources, and he lent me a book written by a University of Michigan instructor in the ’50s with footnotes that wouldn’t pass muster in a high school student’s essay today. (For example, a comment that Buddhist missionaries obviously influenced the religious environment of Jesus’ time leads to this footnote: Gospel of John.) No chapter, no verse - and no explanation linking Buddhist thought with that in the Gospel.  The book also treated Gnostic writings as equal to Book of Tobit and such. 

I promised myself I wouldn’t even bother to ask him for sources anymore, especially since other students roll their eyes and today mutter “There she goes again.” But when he peppers his talks with dirty jokes and “On the History channel I saw…”, I want to scream.

Jeff Miller aka “The Curt Jester” has a post about women who were ordained as priests in a Protestant church - and insist they’re Catholic priests because they “remain faithful to the (Catholic) church”.  They’ve been excommunicated, of course, but they and their supports don’t “feel” the excommunication. 

Therefore, they’re not.

 This actually reminds me of an interesting anecdote that someone told me (and I have permission to share).  There was a married woman who started having an adulterous affair. Her husband and children were upset, of course, but even worse was the blithe way in which she wanted to incorporate her lover into their lives. Namely, she wanted her lover to move into the same home as her husband.

I know there are people (like NOW ex-president Patricia Ireland) who think that bigamy is fine if only people in the relationship are “open-minded”. However, the husband (and children) weren’t having it.

Her husband filed for a divorce. After it was finalized, the ex-wife continued to refer to herself as his wife.  She remarried. When he remarried, she showed up at the hotel where the ceremony took place - with her NEW husband - in order to object.

So that’s what I think of women who excommunicate themselves and then insist they’re in communion with the Church.  

One of the Baby Rabbits - the quality is poor either because I was moving too much or the camera was zoomed in too close.

Mother Rabbit and her brood - the only photo in which her head was up. The rest of the time, she was grooming the heck out of them. She actually managed to flip one of them (on the far left) onto its back. It kept nursing, its white belly exposed and its legs kicking  a little.