Over the past few months I have been given a great gift. By American standards I have been poor. It is not real poverty: there has been plenty of (really cheap) food, and I was not homeless. But money is tight. Very tight.
I can write about this now because I am finally convinced that we really are quite [...]
Tag Archives: A Swift Kick
But Where is Jesus?
Posted in Catholicism Also tagged Copyright, Liberation Theology, Poverty, Pregnancy, Privilege, Salvation, Suffering 10 Comments
Going to Hell
At the end of last September I realized that I was headed toward hell.1 I sat in Adoration reading random chapters from Schönborn’s My Jesus and wondering what on earth I was doing with my life.
Schönborn quoted Matthew 25:31-46 and then he wrote:
It is God’s Final Judgement. But how will it come about? What standard [...]
Posted in Catholicism Also tagged Hell, Love, Salvation, Schönborn, Sins of Omission, Teresa of Avila, Works of Mercy 5 Comments
Human Trafficking in the USA
14,500 – 17,500.
That is how many people the State Department estimates are trafficked into the US each year. I have been meaning to post about human trafficking in the United States for a while, but it is so overwhelming.
So I was thrilled when I saw Kelly’s giveaway for a cause. All you have to [...]
Does Anything Strike You About This List?
The idea of conventions really appeals to me. You not only get to hear great speakers on the topic that interests you, you also get to meet others with the same interest. Even though I do not attend many conferences, I love to read about them. And what could be better than conferences that focus [...]
Haiti and Helplessness
I found out about the earthquake in Haiti the morning after it happened. I saw something online about praying or giving to Haiti the night before, but that is not unusual for me, so I did not think about it. Then my mother called wanting to know whether I had information on a friend who [...]
2010 Gratitude
I had plans for reviewing 2009 and setting goals for 2010. But my greatest lesson of 2009 was learning to accept my lack of control over life events, so I have little motivation for establishing formal goals for this year.
New Years day found me camping with part of my family in the Florida Panhandle. I [...]
Thankful
Today I struggle to be thankful because my thoughts are clouded by guilt. It is the guilt of squandered privilege that distracts me from thanking God for my blessings. It is not simply that I have what others have not. The problem is that while I have resources to improve the lives of others, and [...]
His needs, her needs, our needs
There is a most annoying tendency to reduce relationships with generalizations about the people in those relationships. Marriage1 is particularly vulnerable to this because it consists of one male and one female person. Oh, what fun we can have with our gender stereotypes! Thus come the His Need, Her Needs, Love and Respect, For Women [...]
Considering My Environment: Drying Hair
I have not been online much for the past few weeks. I wish that I could say that was due to the fact that I was abstaining from wasting electricity. Alas, the explanation is far more mundane and, well, less virtuous. It involves sickness and business and the usual. But, while I have not been [...]
June Environment Observation
After thinking a lot about my last post I decided to post daily in June. My plan is to consider my day and to note each thing in my immediate environment which I could change in order to have a better (less negative) impact on the environment as a whole. This might turn into a [...]
