A Word on Wednesday, Wednesday, February 8. 2012, St Alphonsus de Liguori

Image via Wikipedia'Many wish to follow Jesus Christ, but from afar, as St. Peter did, who, when his Master was arrested in the garden, says St. Matthew, followed him afar off. But by doing so that will easily happen to them which happened to St. Peter; namely, that, when the occasion came, he denied Jesus Christ.'

The Tyrant, from Fr. Schall

A really good column from Fr Schall on the Catholic Thing website, The Tyrant, on the tyrant in history: they are safe as long as, in their souls, the people define freedom as the doing of whatever they want.  A very worthwhile read.

Miscellaneous Musings, Saturday, February 4, 2012

Wal-Mart

I went to Wal-Mart the other day, I had to return something and I wanted a refund for it.  I think we bought two of something we only needed one of.  I don’t remember what it was that I returned and I guess it’s not important to the story.  To complicate matters, I had lost the receipt.  She who is the ultimate authority told me I had lost the receipt, since she would never do such a thing.  I won’t quibble.

Anyway, I trundled on down to Wal-Mart, went to Customer Service and luckily, there wasn’t much of a line.  I explained to the clerk about the extra item purchased and about being judged the party responsible for the lost receipt and threw myself on her mercy.  No problem, she gladly agreed a refund was in order and soon, refund in pocket I was out the door.  End of story.

However, I thought back to the years when I grew up in Detroit and what it was like to get a refund back then.  Say you received a sweater at Christmas from Hudson’s and say that sweater didn’t fit.  You were, after all, a growing boy and that was sometimes hard for Aunt Phoebe to keep up with.  Anyway, you could get that refund, but you had to have the receipt, no question about that, and you had to have all original packaging, intact.  Also, you had to bring it back to the store in the Hudson’s bag as I recall.  If you were able to accomplish the above, you would probably get your refund.  If not, forget it, you had to wear the ill-fitting sweater until next Christmas, especially in the presence of Aunt Phoebe.  This whole process was, needless to say, a hassle and fraught with anxiety, for fear of failure, and for fear of having to wear some ill-fitting, God awful sweater all year, or at least whenever Aunt Phoebe was around.

Now, I’m a traditional kind of guy and I believe that there were many things experienced during the “good old days” that could stand to be returned.  Family life being one of those things.  And yet, here I’d just had a clear revelation that some things are better today than they ever were back then.  When I realized this, I also remembered that, especially when I was younger, I would note the behavior of older folks (like I am now) and promise myself, or hope to myself, that I didn’t fall into those kinds of behaviors.  One of them was an obsession with the past and inability to see anything good in the present.    I saw that I was in some little danger, however, of falling into that very trap.  It was a surprise, a bit of a shock.  That’s not a good thing.  So, next time I have to get a refund at Wal-Mart, or whenever I encounter something that is a great improvement over “the good old days,” I’ll remind myself of St. Paul’s instruction to the Phillipians nearly two millennia ago:

“Brothers, I for my part do not consider myself to have taken possession. Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.”  Phillipians 3: 13-14 (NABRE)

Sometimes it’s good to forget the past.

Founders Friday, Friday, February 3, 2012, Dr. Jedidiah Morse

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"To the kindly influence of Christianity, we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoy. In proportion, as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation, either through unbelief, or the corruption of its doctrines, or the neglect of its institutions; in the same proportion will the people of the nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom and approximate the miseries of complete despotism." (1799)

Miscellaneous Musinngs, Thursday, February 2, 2012

What would you carry for a friend?
 

I thought I’d try to freshen the blog this year by writing in response to writing prompts I happened across.  I’ve done this sometimes in the past but usually can’t come up with any good ideas and give up quickly.  This year, in the interest of improving self-discipline and building character, I determined not to give up on any writing prompt once it had been chosen.  A day or two ago, I came across an interesting one:  “What would you carry for a friend?”

My first thought was that, after a back surgery and severe shoulder injury some years ago, I likely wouldn’t be carrying anything for any friends in the foreseeable future.  I was stumped, but determined.  So, I thought about what it meant to carry something for someone.

I thought back to my grade school days and how it was thought a romantic gesture to offer to carry a girl’s books home from school.  Back then we didn’t carry a great many books, so the effort wasn’t great, and it would convey what a chivalrous, strong and decent fellow you were.  The object of your affections might even discover that you were really a likable guy after all.  Of course, often the gesture was met with gales of laughter, which kind of took the romance out of the thing.  And these days, kids are burdened with 50 lb. bags filled with books, computers, wireless routers, who knows what.  Making such an offer is a much greater undertaking, something to be considered carefully.   I notice, also, that kids don’t seem to walk home from school much nowadays.    So even if a young fellow like me might offer to carry such a burden for a poor girl who happened to be left on foot, the probable outcome would be freeing her hands to pull out her cell phone and text her friends about the silly schmuck she found to carry her stuff for her.  That wouldn’t do. 

Then, I thought I could help my neighbor, an octogenarian, shovel his 50 ft. driveway after a cold, wet spring snow.  However, he has the world’s greatest snow blower and can clear that lane in about 5 minutes, blowing all his snow clear across the cul-de-sac into the bowl that is my short driveway, leaving me to spend an hour or two shoving myself out of the octogenarian generated avalanche.  He does it all the time.  He’s on his own. 

I was still stumped.  Finally, I thought perhaps I might find some little old lady at the grocery store that needed help carrying her bags to the car.  But I realized she would probably take me for a mugger or worse, some sort of sexual predator, and drill me with her concealed-carry 9 mm, complete with armor piercing bullets.   After my death, and learning of my pure intentions, she would feel neither Catholic guilt nor repentance, only smug self-satisfaction that there was one less pervert in the world.  Godless [deleted by censor]!! 

I was right to begin with.  Whatever it is my friends have to carry, they can manage it themselves.

Miscellaneous Musings,Thursday,February 2, 2012

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This is from If You Want to Write, by Brenda Ueland.  It's a perfect example of someone who practiced what she preached.  Her book was written in the 1930's, the depths of the Great Depression and I doubt she ever made much money from it's publication.  Yet, she produced something of a classic of it's kind.  The book deserves to be read by all aspiring writer's again and again.

“It is our nasty twentieth-century materialism that makes us feel: what is the use of writing, painting, etc., unless one has an audience or gets cash for it? Socrates and the men of the Renaissance did so much because the rewards were intrinsic, i.e., the enlargement of the soul. Yes we are all thoroughly materialistic about such things. 'What's the use?' we say, of doing anything unless you make money or get applause? for when a man is dead he is dead.' Socrates and the Greeks decided that a man's life should be devoted to 'the tendance of the Soul' (Soul included intelligence, imagination, spirit, understanding, personality) for the soul lived eternally, in all probability. I think it is all right to work for money, to work to have things enjoyed by people, even very limited ones; but the mistake is to feel that the work, the effort, the search is not the important and the exciting thing. One cannot strive to write a cheap, popular story without learning more about cheapness. But enough. I may very well be getting to raving.”— Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write

A Word on Wednesday, Wednesday, February 1. 2012, St Francis de Sales

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Make yourself familiar with the Angels, and behold them frequently in spirit. Without being seen, they are present with you. 

St. Francis de Sales