« December 2005 | Main | February 2006 »
Our parish, St. Margaret Mary in Oakland, participated in the Walk for Life West Coast 2006, which was a huge success. Even those on the pro-abortion side couldn't help but remark on the prayerful, peaceful attitude of the pro-life marchers.
Here are some photo's of the traditional Latin community of St. Margaret Mary's at the Walk.
Pope Benedict spoke recently to the Roman Rota, the body responsible for hearing annulment appeals. The media is reporting his remarks as a signal that the Church will loosen the rules for annulments, but they miss the point. The Pope's remarks emphasized that a painful situation requires a speedy resolution, but that efficiency is not the goal of the process. Rather, the concern should be pastoral and loving, including a "love for truth."
Amy Welborn's blog has comments from a Canon lawyer who concludes that the explosion of annulments in the U.S. is symptomatic of a larger moral crisis and not an indication that annulments are given too easily. The solution, as the Pope points out, has to include better marriage preparation.
The new Battlestar Galactica (BSG) on the SciFi Channel has a knack for examining our world through the microcosm of the remnants of the human race making up the Colonial Fleet. Peter Suderman has an excellent review of BSG over at National Review Online.
The 20 January episode, "Epiphanies," examined medical therapies that use fetal cells, the humanity of the unborn, terrorism, and fifth columnist extremists. Jonah Goldberg comments on the episode over in the Corner at NRO (WARNING: link contains spoilers for the episode). My reaction was right in line with Jonah's.
I learned about "freaking" today. Also known as "freak dancing," the practice involves a female placing her (clothed) rear end against a male's pants zipper and vigorously shaking her bootie. And, unfortunately, it involved some teenagers at one of our local high schools. (Yet another excellent reason for homeschooling!)
What I thought most when I heard of this behavior was, "How low can we go?" We live in a culture that requires greater and greater audacity to shock. What is the next step following simulated sex on the dance floor? Actual sex? And if it gets to that point, what then? Rape on the dance floor?
The power and strength of Western Civilization comes from virtues like temperance, chastity, fortitude, and prudence, to name a few. Whenever we have veered from these virtues, we have become less human, more animal. If we want to maintain our humanity, our focus needs to become "How high can we go?" We need to realize that God's laws free us to become the best that we can be rather than animals feeding at the trough of self-indulgent hedonism, a frenzy that never satisfies and leads people farther and farther away from their true happiness.
Many of our friends will be marching in the Walk for Life West Coast this Saturday. Lisa and I prayed about it a lot, talked it over with friends, and talked to a priest friend of ours who will be marching in the walk, and have decided that we can't march this year. The anger and hate on the part of the pro-abortion forces at the 2005 Walk, and the expectation that it will be even more virulent this year has us concerned. Sarah is pretty sensitive about that kind of conflict, and we've decided that it's not an appropriate time for her to be exposed to that kind of hate. It's sad that we can't show our support in person, but we're praying for those who march, and for conversion of heart for those who counter-protest on the pro-abortion side.
The best the Senators Kennedy, Leahy, and Biden et al. can come up with in the conrfirmation hearings for Judge Samuel Alito is a non-issue about Vanguard (as a point of comparison: should Alito have recused himself from any case involving the Coca Cola Company because he once drank a Coke?) and an even more obscure issue involving the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP).
Judge Alito says he believes, but cannot say for certain, that his involvement sprang from opposition to Princeton's hostile policy toward ROTC. I can believe that. The ROTC issue lingered as a sore spot at Princeton into the mid-80's, when I was a graduate student there.
I think it's a good indication that Judge Alito will be confirmed if this is the best his opponents can do.
Once nice side-benefit of this is that it's gotten a lot of attention for National Review Magazine and their former publisher, William A. Rusher. Rusher wrote an excellent book, The Rise of the Right on Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign and the other political goings-on among conservatives in the 60's and 70's that resulted in Ronald Reagan's election in 1980. The book is out of print, but you can find it used online.
If you know me and you take good care of books, I might let you borrow my copy.
In a Nutcracker Ballet induced frenzy, my son Alex raced around the family room killing the Mouse King over and over to full orchestral accompaniment. He bounced from being the Nutcracker to being Toad from The Wind in the Willows, brandishing his new plastic sword and chanting "Take that! I'm Toad! I'm the Nutcracker! Take that!"
Yesterday a Nutcracker T-shirt arrived in the mail, courtesy of Grandma Naf, and Alex's little jaw fell in open admiration. Today, it caught his eye again upon rising, and he decided he needed to wear it immediately, so we had no fight about getting dressed. He informed me that the Nutcracker didn't actually wear a shirt like that one, which I thought was pretty astute for a two year old, but, of course, he was the Nutcracker anyway.
I am loving this time of his life where he can race around the house rescuing me and killing me in turns. I hope he never abandons his chivalry.
As reported at National Review Online, Congressman Tom Delay has decided to bow out permanently as House Majority Leader. My feelings are mixed: morally, it was the right thing for him to do, politically, it's always bad to show weakness when your enemies behave like wolves. However, because of the moral dimension, he obviously did the right thing.
Tactically speaking, the best option would be for the GOP to elect a majority leader who's even more of a hammer than "The Hammer." The beauty of how the President handled the Harriet Myers debacle is that after bowing to pressure and criticism, Bush nominated someone even less congenial to the hardline left than Myers would have been. Speaker Hastert and the GOP caucus in the House could learn something.
Since yesterday (Friday) was the Feast of Epiphany (or Sunday, depending on which liturgical calendar you use), I figured it was time to pull the Christmas decorations down. But according to our 1962 Roman Missal, we've got until the Octave of Epiphany on January 13. Woo-hoo!
Thanks to everyone who said a prayer for my mom during her recent hospital stay. She was released yesterday (Wednesday) and is still weak. Nevertheless, she's happy to be out of the hospital. Now we're trying to convince her to take it easy until her follow-up doctor visits next week.
Homeschooling this morning resembled that famous skit by Abbot and Costello. And it wasn't my often challenging, lovely daughter, Sarah. It was my adorable, easy-going son, Alex, who decided that today he would pretend to be Chatty Cathy. It started something like this:
Me: Sarah, what does this word say?
Sarah: Um... huh, aw, guh... hot!
Me: No, look at...
Alex: (shrieking) Mommy! Look! Apple! (He points to an alphabet card with an apple.)
Me: (smiling) Yes, very good! "A" makes a sound like in apple.
Sarah: Let me see the card!
Me: Alex, show her the card. Okay, back to the word. Sarah, sound it out..."
Alex: Look! Baby nest!
Sarah: Where?
Me: Okay, Alex, that's nice. Can you just look at the cards while I help Sarah? Sarah?
Sarah: Haw... Haw... Hot!
Me: No, the last letter is a "g," not a "t." What sound does the last letter make?
Alex: (screaming excitedly) You be the Mouse King! I'll be the Nutcracker and kill you with my sword!
Sarah: (also screaming, in irritation) Alex, stop talking!
Me: Sarah, don't yell at him. Alex, you need to be quiet so I can work with Sarah. Sarah, can you look at the word again?
Sarah: Alex needs to be quiet.
Me: He will. Go ahead.
Sarah: Haw... Hot!
Alex: (singing at top of lungs) Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle All the Way!
Me: (now screaming) OKAY! Everybody be QUIET!
I took a few liberties, but that's basically how it went. Some days are just like that. We finally salvaged the lesson (after I comforted Alex, who didn't like my yelling at him) by tossing him into the back yard to play.
I called my brother today to wish him a happy birthday, and I enjoyed hearing his voice. I don't call him often enough. In fact, I don't call most of my friends and family often enough. I think, if I'm going to have a New Year's resolution, it will be to make more time for people. We are all kinda fragile, and I don't know of anyone who doesn't appreciate a call to say "I'm thinking of you. How are you?" Those little things like a phone call or note via email or snail mail lift the spirits of others, and they really don't take that much effort to accomplish. Yes, we are all busy. We all have too much to do. I have a five year old and a two year old, so I understand busy. But if my grandmother were to die this year, and I had kept putting off calling her -- in essence, a visit to the sick that Jesus talked about -- how will "I was busy" sound then?
Rod Dreher has written a new book called "Crunchy Cons." He summarized his argument in an article in the Sunday Times.
I remember when Dreher first put his argument forward at National Review Online and in NRODT (National Review On Dead Tree). His description fits Lisa and me pretty well, and I suspect it fits some of our fellow parishoners and homeschoolers, too.
Lisa and I rang in the New Year with Lisa's mom, Gloria; listening to Christmas carols (after all, it's still Christmas until the Feast of the Epiphany on Friday, 6 January) and toasting the New Year with some nice champagne.
New Year's Eve in our Pleasanton neighborhood was unusually boisterous this year: someone invested a fortune in firecrackers. These folks must have been celebrating the brief break between winter rainstorms, or maybe they recognize what the mainstream media doesn't: life is pretty good for most of us. For those who had a bad 2005, we pray for a better 2006.