Lunch of the East Beast

I made inari sushi for lunch and ate it with some mild Indian turkey kebobs.
There is no particular reason anyone needed to know this.
Lunch just felt a little more special than usual.
:)

Gleaning from Sheen

I belong to a group of Catholic women that meet weekly to study Catholic books. For about a year now we have been slowly reading through Fulton Sheen's "Life of Christ". There are thousands of amazing insights in this book. However one recent set struck close to some of the themes that I take particular note of.

Some of the most amazing scriptural insights come in threes. In chapter 48, "The Crucifixion" Fulton Sheen points out that the inscription on the cross, "Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews" was instructed by Pilot to be written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. Sheen says:

"His death and His kingship were proclaimed in the name of the three [great]cities of the world: Jerusalem, Rome, and Athens; in the language of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful; in the tongues of Zion, the Forum and the Acropolis."

Under the inscription which proclaimed His kingship the cross became His throne. As King his blood adorned Him as His royal robe...the nails were His sceptre...the crown of thorns His diadem.

Wow.

Occam's Razor & Shaving Brush

A quick audio reflection on applying the idea of Occam's Razor to truth AND beauty.
HERE.

Solitude

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow it's mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Cat N' Roses

I forget how much my cat likes flowers until he acts like a fool with a new bouquet. I took photos this time as he enjoyed my Valentine roses.

The Cathedral: Metaphor and Film

I could have sworn that I have written about this brilliant short film before, but since I can't find my post, I am posting it again just-in-case.

Please watch this breathtaking film. You may not see what I saw, but the metaphor about the interior life seemed plain to me.





The Cathedral (2002) -by Tomek Baginski based on a short story by Jacek Dukaj.

There is an English translation of part of the original Polish story available to read online HERE.

The Secret of Kells

I came across another film that I find very artistically inspiring.
It is an animated movie called "The Secret of Kells".
I was able to watch it on Netflix.
I recommend seeing it.

Enjoy!

Pope Excited about Youth Catechism Project

Recently Pope Benedict XVI has announced his excitement over a new translation of
the Catechism of the Catholic Church specifically for youth.

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In light of World Youth Days "we asked ourselves if we should not seek to translate the Catechism of the Catholic Church into the language of young people and make its words penetrate their world."

Hence, the Holy Father noted, the work was entrusted to the same editor as for the adult version: Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna.

"I hope that many young people will let themselves be fascinated by this book," he said.

The Pontiff continued, "Some persons tell me that the Catechism does not interest today's youth, but I do not believe this affirmation and I am sure I am right."

Young people are not superficial as they are accused of being, the Holy Father affirmed: "Young people want to know what life truly consists of. [...] This book is fascinating because it speaks to us of our very destiny and that is why it concerns each one of us very closely. "Because of this I invite you: Study the Catechism! This is my heartfelt wish."

He noted that the youth version of the Catechism doesn't underestimate young people.

"[I]t does not," the Pope said, "offer easy solutions; it calls for a new life on your part; it presents to you the message of the Gospel as the 'precious pearl' for which there is need to give everything."

"Because of this I ask you: Study the Catechism with passion and perseverance! Sacrifice your time for it! Study it in the silence of your room, read it together, if you are friends, form groups and study networks, exchange ideas on the Internet. In any case remain in dialogue on your faith," he exhorted. "You must know what you believe; you must know your faith with the same precision with which a specialist in information technology knows the working system of a computer; you must know it as a musician knows his piece; yes, you must be much more profoundly rooted in the faith of the generation of your parents, to be able to resist forcefully and with determination the challenges and temptations of this time.

"You have need of divine help, if you do not want your faith to dry up as a dewdrop in the sun, if you do not want to succumb to the temptations of consumerism, if you do not want your love to be drowned in pornography, if you do not want to betray the weak and the victims of abuse and violence."

Love the Church

The Pope concluded with a final counsel: "You all know in what way the community of believers has been wounded in recent times by the attacks of evil, by the penetration of sin in the interior, in fact in the heart of the Church. Do not take this as a pretext to flee from God's presence; you yourselves are the Body of Christ, the Church! Carry intact the fire of your love in this Church every time that men have obscured her face."

And he noted God's predilection for the young: "When Israel was in the darkest point of its history, God called to the rescue no great and esteemed persons, but a youth called Jeremiah; Jeremiah felt invested with too great a mission: 'Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth!'

"But God did not let himself be misled: 'Do not say, "I am only a youth;" for to all to whom I send you you shall go, and whatever I command you you shall speak.'" "I bless you," the Holy Father concluded, "and pray every day for all of you."

Source.

Politically Incorrect Poem Found in Textbook

In college I once had the misfortune of repeating a class. I don't recommend failing a class because you personally loath the teacher. Granted, there were other things going on in my personal life at the time, but hindsight is clearer once you pay money for the same class twice. One also learns that you are not likely to get a teacher with balanced opinions teaching a humanities class in an art college in Detroit.

Anyhow, I ended up with two textbooks in the end. Not two different text books, but both the third and fourth edition of the same textbook. I fell for the new teacher's insistance that the fourth edition was better and that having the same page numbers would be beneficial to following along in class. Yes, I can be a sucker.

Flipping through one edition and then the other not long ago, trying to decide whether I would eject one or both books from my personal library, I noticed an interesting poem that we hadn't covered in class. It was in chapter 36 of "The Humanistic Tradition" book 6 "The Global Village of the Twentieth Century" by Gloria K. Fiero. The chapter title was "Identity and Liberation". I beleive the only reason the poem made it into the book at all is because it was written by African American Harlem Renaissance Poetess Gwendolyn Brooks. I'm sure it didn't hurt that she had previously won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Rather than trying to describe what I had read I will present Ms. Brooks' poem to you.

"The Mother" 1945

Abortions will not let you forget.
You remember the children you got that you did not get,
The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair,
The singers and the workers that never handled the air.
You will never neglect or beat
Them, or silence or buy with a sweet.
You will never wind up the sucking-thumb
Or scuttle off ghosts that come.
You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh,
Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye.

I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children.
I have contracted. I have eased
My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck.
I have said, Sweets, if I have sinned, if I seized
Your luck
And your lives from your unfinished reach,
If I stole your births and your names,
Your straight baby tears and your games,
Your stilted and lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches, and your deaths,

If I poisoned the beginning of your breaths,
Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.
Though why should I whine,
Whine that the crime was other than mine?-
Since anyhow you are dead.
Or rather, or instead,
You were never made.

But that too, I am afraid,
Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said?
You were born, you had body, you died.
It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried.

Believe me, I loved you all.
Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you
All.

The Gardasil Deception

I had a doctor's appointment today and as I cooled my heels in the waiting room I noticed a display of Gardasil pamphlets. I didn't used to think one way or another about this new vaccine or their intense advertising campaign. I assumed it was like breast cancer awareness and was conducted in the public's best interest. However, I discovered that just like the Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign there is some deception and/or facts purposely left out for the advertiser's benefit. I continue to amaze myself with my own naive willingness to assume the best from others. When I became better informed on the issue I can now see the Gardasil machine as the propaganda that it is.

I am posting an article from ALL's magazine "Celebrate Life". It is readily available on their own site, but since I had problems trying to get the article to download I figured I'd make it available here in another format. Where one has a problem downloading, there will be others, and this issue is important enough to re-post.

Please click on each image in order to read the pages of the article.
(I'd like to point out that when this article was written the advertising was only targeting girls and young women. The pharmaceutical company has since decided to "recommend" that boys receive the shot also.)

I will be following up on this post with more info as I find the time. Meanwhile, stay informed and God bless.