At Considerable Cost

I have made some big changes in my on-line reading, posting, and social media activity.  I identified with this piece by Charlie Brooker when he describes the noise of the media in our world and even with his realization that such a post was "Olympic naval-gazing": http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/28/too-much-talk-charlie-brooker Yes, there's just too much noise for me, too.   There is too much clever strategy in creating and advancing images, making contacts and connections.   My friends on Facebook really don't need (or want) to hear my thoughts on daily events or news events.   At times, in the blogger world, it seems there are people in little circles getting all worked up over something that is going on in those little circles while the vast majority of the world isn't even aware of the situation or the people talking about it.   I didn't want to be permanently sucked int...

Every day, I see headlines proclaiming that all is lost, each side claiming the other side is evil and the cause of all ills.   Because of my social media settings, many of these lamentations come from those who are Catholic.    And I've grown weary from it.   I can always find relief in scripture and prayer, but recently, I've found hope for literature, television, and film from some secular sources.    I watch the films of Steve McQueen who explores what it means to be human and how our actions affect others.   I read the reviews of stand-up comedian, writer, and actor,  Brett Goldstein, whose show, Contains Scenes of an Adult Nature , chronicles his addiction to pornography and his journey as he gave it up and continues to heal in the way he deals with women and relationships.   There are people out there searching for answers, for truth.   They are asking us to thi...

Black eyes.   Technically brown, but any border of iris is lost in their depths.   Not just windows to her soul, but to their observer, they seemed to also be a mirror into his own soul.   Eyes whose near blackness had the same effect as the nun's black habit, always turning my thoughts to God.   In the daylight, those turned thoughts were fresh, hopeful and exciting: a new life, redemption, belief sparkled within delicate almond-frames.   Sharp wit and wisdom beyond years.   But then there was the night, as the blackness deepened around, so it did in those eyes.   Still sparkling, but now with a depth of experience and knowledge.   She was close to God, in love and hope, but that proximity also opened her up to the spiritual world.   The reality of battles, forces, of angels and demons.   Sure, knowing, and peaceful, relying on the name of Jesus and to use the evangelical vernacul...

I did not give up Facebook for Lent, but I ended up nearly abandoning it during Holy Week.   I only glanced at notifications and "liked" all the beautiful family Easter photos that I found on my news feed late Sunday evening.   This evening, I found a notification that Marc at BadCatholic on the Patheos Catholic Channel had finally gotten back to writing.   And what a return!   It seems there's constantly a post churning in the back of my mind about what drew me to the Catholic Church, despite my anti-Catholic upbringing.   I loved novels set amongst devout Jewish families, with their calendar centered around festivals that even dictated the use of their time and foodstuffs.   Why had that disappeared with Christianity?   Liturgy?   And then I attended my first mass and felt the draw and the first pull for me to find that which my heart so desperately sought.   Now, I've read this, though, a...

Today is the feast day of one of my favorite saints, St. Therese, known as the Little Flower.   Along with St. Jeanne d'Arc, she is Co-Patroness of France and one of only three women officially given the title "Doctor of the Church" because of the profound truths and teachings contained in her spiritual writings and more importantly, in her life.   Her writings are few, memoirs of her life and spiritual journey she wrote under direction from her superior at the convent.   Her life was short, only 24 years, ended by tuberculosis.   However few and short her writings and years, the love, power, grace, and glory contained in them is limitless.   She is still teaching and touching lives today, 115 years after her death. I began a devotion to this great saint before the birth of our oldest daughter.   We gave her the middle name, Therese-Marie, when she was born so she would have the intercession of two powerful patrons, St. T...

I just want to share this for anyone who might stumble upon this little blog.   I just want to keep this here, for my children to read.   I just want to keep this here to refer back, time and again.   I just want THIS :   http://shirtofflame.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-i-avoid-both-catholic-left-and.html This is one of my favorite written pieces from any Catholic author, or otherwise for that matter.   It expressed what I longed for when I first read it.   My heart hurt so when I read posts by a pro-lifer which began with, "Oh, yeah, well, if you think that then you..." directed at those who commented in disagreement on a post.   The standard justification for such a  lack of civility was "I just tell it like it is."  I had to hide the posts from my Facebook newsfeed.  I almost cried when a Catholic posted on Facebook that he had to sit by a gay couple and included the comment, "Gross." in his post. ...

Two books and a movie.  An author, a saint, and a fictional character.   They've all been tossing about in my mind over the past few weeks.   I recently completed two books, Lizzie's War and Shirt of Flame: A Year with Saint Therese of Lisieux .   Both books--one fiction, the other non-fiction--dovetailed to prompt pondering about vocation, love, and desire. Lizzie's War , by Tim Farrington, is beautiful in its rawness and reality.   Set in the late 1960s, the book alternates the story of Mike, a Marine in Vietnam, and his wife, Lizzie, left at home on her own battlefront, trying her best to run the family in his absence and to not lose herself in the process.   For the past few years, my reading has consisted of theology, especially apologetics, and classics, such as Dickens, Austen, and Shakespeare.   All good, but combined with the preoccupation of taking care of my father and dealing with estate matters, ...

from Chapter July, page 177, Coventry Patmore on a saint: "...he will mostly likely dwell with reiteration on commonplaces with which you were perfectly well acquainted before you were twelve years old; but you must make allowance for him, and remember that the knowledge which is to you a surface with no depth is to him a solid ..." "A solid"--firmness, foundation, support, unwavering, not prone to or dependent upon fashions or whims.   Something which I honestly have felt myself lacking for months now.  "Rock solid" is a cliche we often use, and the book Shirt of Flame has been a rock of sorts--a pebble-- in my life since it arrived on my doorstep.    Two forms of a pebble--the one-- that aggravating pebble in a shoe that makes its presence known with each step you take until you finally stop and deal with it.   And the other--a smooth, beautiful pebble, held in your palm, as you turn it over and stroke it, an aid to your contemplation, ...