Blogging Snippets

I've got a bunch of articles that I've been meaning to read and/or point out. Here's a list of some of them.

1. Today at Just Doing My Best, newhousenewjob discusses open-mindedness and belief in God:

A friend of mine once said to me, "I'd love to believe in God the way you do, but I just can't - I'm too open-minded."

...

I like to think of it another way.

My mind is open to the possibility that there are greater things in life than me, my selfish desires and the things I can independently observe and scientifically prove.

It gets better!

2. Jen at Et, Tu? has a wonderful review of My Life with the Saints that includes this wonderful bit about my favorite saint, Saint Peter:

Peter was not perfect...A perfect man would never have denied Jesus and therefore would never have understood the human desire for forgiveness. A perfect man would never have argued with the other disciples and therefore would never have understood the need for reconciliation. A perfect man would never have realized how desperately he really needed Jesus, and would never have understood how this truth is the basis of all discipleship. [...]

Sometimes I wonder if Jesus chose Peter not despite his imperfections but because of them. Peter's knowledge of his own limits led him to understand his reliance on God. It also enabled him to appreciate the love that Jesus had for him, as well as to celebrate the fact that God can work through anyone, no matter how human. And that's not such a bad message to carry to the ends of the earth.

This perfectly sums up what I love so very much about our first pope. I cannot wait to meet him!

3. Elena at My Domestic Church wrote about dealing with the death of a child. It was in a Catholic Carnival recently, but it's worth highlighting again.

4. Over at Knit Together with Love, Amy has posted an article that I'm still working through. It has a great comparison of the writing of C.S. Lewis and the Harry Potter series. There's more to the books than wand-waving, you know! (And I'm hoping to finish that article today. Somehow, it was hard to read poolside, especially when we were having math and P.E. lessons.)

5. "Our church [doesn't] usually have problems with cell phones going off during Mass as I've heard can be a problem in other parishes. However, recently someone came in with a cup of Starbucks coffee. Ushers tell the story of the person who came in with a bag of potato chips and sat eating them during Mass."

So begins Julie's posting of the new etiquiette rules that her pastor drew up. I would love to see these posted at our parish, too, where Sunday Best seems to include sweats, shorts, flip-flops, and Game Boys. (Seriously. I cringed when I saw that this five year old boy was playing Game Boy during the Consecration at Mass last Sunday. My six-year-old has been following the Mass for years, and Hubby and I have always insisted on the girls kneeling and standing and sitting at the appropriate times. Well, at least since they were around two, anyway.) You can read the whole thing at Happy Catholic.

I also saw this amazing quote at Happy Catholic, which I've been saving, and I think it's time to just put it here:

It was the Catholic Church's firm stand against contraception and abortion which finally made me decide to become a Catholic ... As the Romans treated eating as an end in itself, making themselves sick in a vomitorium so as to enable them to return to the table and stuff themselves with more delicacies, so people now end up in a sort of sexual vomitorium. The Church's stand is absolutely correct. It is to its eternal honor that it opposed contraception, even if the opposition failed. I think, historically, people will say it was a very gallant effort to prevent a moral disaster.

Malcolm Muggeridge

6. Jackie, the Catholic Mom of 10, talked about Miles Jesus and how they pass out "Golden Tracts." She gave me permission to show you just what they look like, but I couldn't get the picture to show up here, so please head to her blog to find out more about them.

7. This isn't just a ladies' club, you know! Joel pointed me in the direction of a post on Michael Vick. (In case you either don't pay attention to sporting news or don't live in Virginia, Vick, quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons football team, is going to go on trial for participating in dogfighting.) But, really, should he be prosecuted? Isn't he just exercising his choice in what to do with his own dog?

8. And, finally (at least for now), I give you Paul, just this guy, you know?, and a bit of adults-only discussion on the problems with pornography. I've been saving this to read when I don't have to worry about little eyes over my shoulder, but it looks like a really terrific article. Let me give you a small snippet before I go for the day:

I will never forget a visit I made to Ilana, an old friend who had become an Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem. When I saw her again, she had abandoned her jeans and T-shirts for long skirts and a head scarf. I could not get over it. Ilana has waist-length, wild and curly golden-blonde hair. “Can’t I even see your hair?” I asked, trying to find my old friend in there. “No,” she demurred quietly. “Only my husband,” she said with a calm sexual confidence, “ever gets to see my hair.”

When she showed me her little house in a settlement on a hill, and I saw the bedroom, draped in Middle Eastern embroideries, that she shares only with her husband—the kids are not allowed—the sexual intensity in the air was archaic, overwhelming. It was private. It was a feeling of erotic intensity deeper than any I have ever picked up between secular couples in the liberated West. And I thought: Our husbands see naked women all day—in Times Square if not on the Net. Her husband never even sees another woman’s hair.

You know, leaving something to the imagination is a much better idea than showing off everything you've got.

Okay, kids, play nice. I'll be out by the pool if you need me.

Christine