My away message this afternoon: Why is it that I have nowhere to go on sunny days, and have to go out when it's raining circus animals?
Jim: sheesh
Jim: you're lucky
Jim: whenever i go out it's raining rainforest animals
Jim: i mean elephants and monkeys are one thing
Jim: jaguars and tarantulas and piranhas are totally something else.
The second it starts raining spiders, I am so out of here.
Mom and I braved the torrential rain for Mass on Sunday. We got out around ten minutes of 1; I missed the part where Fr. Finamore always gives shortish homilies. We saw one of my dad's RCIA teachers on our way out. That prompted Mom to tell me that my dad has enough seniority with TSA to pick better days off. He has Mondays and Tuesdays now, but in a few weeks, he'll be switching to weekends off. That means he can go to Mass with us on Sundays! And if he goes, then maybe the whole family can go together. I only
know they're going to Mass if I go with them, so this is a huge development. I've discussed with my dad about the rugrats' non-attendance, and he agrees with me: If she makes them get up and go every week, then they'll get used to it and will stop staying up until 3am on Saturday nights. If she keeps dragging them along on random weeks, well, she'll have to keep dragging them there. We're all Catholic; we should act more like it.
Mary emailed me (and Tim and Fr. Bill, among others) a
Washington Post headline that made me scream. Literally. I actually yelled out loud:
"Rowling to Kill Two in Final 'Potter' Book". Oh, man. That is going to be a rough weekend; I can see it now. Note to self when planning Potter Party: Tissues. Tissues and fellow readers to offer moral support when we're on the same page (again, literally).
A friend of mine told me of a recent conversation at his family's dinner table that keeps reverberating in my mind. His wife, a physician, also performs abortions. And their 9-year-old son — hearing the words and curious about its meaning — looked up from his plate and asked, "What is an abortion?" His mother tried carefully to describe it in simple terms.
"But," said her son, "that means killing the baby." The mother then explained that there are certain months during which an abortion cannot be performed, with very few exceptions. The 9-year-old shook his head. "But," he said, "it doesn't matter what month. It still means killing the babies." Hearing the story, I wished it could be repeated to the justices of the Supreme Court, in the hope that at least five of them might act on this 9-year-old's clarity of thought and vision. [read it, via Jimmy Akin]
Sometimes I think much of life really is as simple as that. I just finished reading C. S. Lewis's
Mere Christianity a few days ago. (I bought it the same night I got HBP, so this completion was particularly satisfying.) The experience of reading it reminded me of "The Five Ways of Knowing God" (St. Thomas Aquinas, from
Summa Theologica) in ARHU last fall. That was a great reading for two reasons: first, because I totally understood it, unlike almost everything else we ever read for ARHU, and second, because I agreed completely. I conceded, though, for St. Thomas and for Lewis, that I didn't exactly need convincing. It's much easier to prove your point to someone who already agrees with you. I found Lewis's approach particularly interesting. I believe in objective/absolute truth, and that was where he began, with moral law. If you don't believe that some things are simply wrong and some are simply right, then it'd be hard to be a Christian. It was definitely worth reading; I've seen it recommended as the #3 most important read for Catholics or seekers (right behind the Bible and Catechism). Now I really understand why. I will definitely read it again in the future, perhaps when I can discuss it, but that's one less item on the Round Tuit book list.
