Prayers needed

Some old friends of mine in Texas (the proprietor of Catholic Bear and his wife) have just taken in four foster children, from teenage to just starting school. They could use all the prayers they can get.

UPDATE: They no longer have the kids, who are in other foster care. Please be praying for the children in a horribly difficult situation.

Revisiting the fence

Back last November, I wrote a little piece about the problem of liberalism and the varying responses to it within the Church. Some discussions I’ve had recently has me revisiting and revising my opinions on this matter. Stay tuned–I’m going to try to squeeze in some time this afternoon to propose a slightly different idea…

The enemy of thought

Prof. Alan Jacobs on the blogosphere.

His analysis is spot on, from my observations and experience.

I’m really going to try to cut back, as I mentioned this weekend…

(HT: Shea)

Rosebud

(Updated 6/10/06 PM)

Last night, I watched the best film I’ve ever seen, without a doubt. And, no that’s not because it’s on everyone’s list as the best movie ever made. Citizen Kane is exactly that. Sure, it’s a technical marvel for something made in 1941; the camerawork is amazing, and the makeup artists turn 25 year old Orson Welles into a very convincing 70 year old man. But, the story is just as good.

As a child, Charles Foster Kane loses everything he loves when his parents send him, permanently, across the country to live with a guardian and go to the best schools. The trauma leads to a man who cannot love, but demands to be loved by everyone. How this perverted drive for love leads him to great wealth, then to lose it all, is harrowing. He loses his son, two wives, a fortune–everything, all because he cannot love. So, he dies, alone in a huge castle in the middle of nowhere, his last word being the name of the sled that was pried away from him when his guardian took him away from the life in rural Colorado that he loved.

Such a story makes you really step back and assess your own life, or at least it did to me. What is important? Well, for one, vain intellectual pursuits aren’t, like interminable arguments with my parish liturgist which never change either one of us. Neither is blogging. Oddly, I can see a pattern: as I get more wrapped up in the latest news, the latest argument, my latest essay, other things suffer: first and foremost, I don’t pray as much, and I sin more. Work also suffers, though not nearly to the same degree.

So, it’s time to get things in order around here. Some folks can blog and so on and maintain their sanctity. I cannot, or at least I cannot right now. I’ll leave the site up in case I change my mind, but for now, I will limit myself to occasional topical writing, but not responding every day to my various whims and various news.

Progressives and Conservatives

I’m quite convinced that GK Chesterton had something profound to say about everything.  Here’s my latest find, thanks to Rod Bennett:

“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition…This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution.”

The Christian’s Dictionary

Hilarious stuff from “holyoffice”…

A highlight:

Heaven
Heaven is a term referring to the ultimate destiny of a certain number of souls. Depending on who you listen to, heaven is either: where all of us will end up (Origen); where many of us will end up (St. Gregory of Nyssa); where some of us will end up (John Calvin); where a small portion of us have, in some sense, already ended up (John of Leyden); where precisely 144,000 of us will end up (Charles Taze Russell); or where Jack Chick will end up (Jack Chick). Theologian Belinda Carlisle once posited that “Ooh, baby, heaven is a place on earth,” but explorers combing the globe have yet to confirm this.

(and don’t forget to scroll down into the comments for an addendum that is just as funny as the original)