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In The Press
As I mentioned at the end of my last brief post, I made a pilgrimage that I’ve been pondering for a while. I returned last week and took some time before attempting to set down a few thoughts here. In recent months I’ve undergone considerable emotional and spiritual stress, some of it from factors beyond my control. The cracks in my foundations have begun to show, and my wife suggested with loving firmness that it was time I made the trip I had been talking about for some time. Back during my very brief time in a college classroom, I had the good fortune to sit under the teaching of…
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A Wonderful Plan
This morning I read a post by Dr. Bruce Charlton, a post examining the idea of finding the spiritual — the significant — in everyday life. Dr. Charlton uses Rudolf Steiner as a platform from which to dive into this topic. I had never heard of Steiner before reading of him in the past on Dr. Charlton’s blog, and I will confess that my attempts to read Steiner have not panned out well. I lack the intellectual muscle-tone to heft this sort of weighty writing (I often have to read some of Dr. Charlton’s essays several times before I can grasp the points he is making). But the central idea…
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April’s Begun
I managed today to evade any attempts to ensnare me in April Fool’s shenanigans. When I look back at some of the jokes I played on people in the past, I am embarrassed. I am also grateful that I was never the victim of some of the more cruel jokes people play on this day. Some of the cruelty is unintentional, but it’s wise to remember that practical jokes can sometimes assume a life of their own, and once they do, it’s difficult to euthanize them. I’m thinking of a woman with whom I used to work. She made a point of telling everyone in the office, “Do not play…
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Fragility Of Life
I took a long, slow walk last evening, saying my Rosary as I strolled. Tiny spring flowers were peeking up through the mast, winking in the dimming light, reminding me that life returns, that certain promises are always kept. While whispering the ancient prayers, I also kept an eye out for the bull over whose health I have been so concerned lately. I never saw him. I will continue to look for him, and in the meantime, I will continue to hope that he was healed as miraculously as our little dog Dixee was. I hope he is on a sunny slope this morning, cropping grass and eyeing the cows…
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The Tenacity Of Unbelief
When I came home yesterday, I walked for a long time, looking for the sick bull. I never did find him. But my wife brought Dixee home from the vet. The little creature had been checked from stem to stern, ultrasound, lab work, pokings and proddings….and had been pronounced sound. No sign of anything amiss. “Perhaps it’s gas!” said the helpful vet. Our small dog clearly felt much better, ate a good supper, ran with speed and joy, and slept at our feet during the evening hours before bedtime. We talked much about her symptoms, the scare she’d given us, and the vet’s pronouncements. We decided that gas might be…
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Faith In Exile, Part III – Conclusion
The Lenten season is upon us, and I am adrift. From what I understand, the majority of people who join the Catholic church are received into her arms during the Easter Vigil. Because of complications in my past life including divorce, along with complete uncertainty about which version of Catholicism I should be following, I have resigned myself to probably never being a real, official Catholic. Yet hope remains. I realized some time ago — gradually, like the sunrise, not an immediate clap of thunder — that I had come to believe the Catholic church is the one, true faith…that the Church truly is the pillar and bulwark of the…
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Faith In Exile, Part II
To continue… I began searching out and reading Catholic blogs and websites, and was soon dismayed at what I read. Well, let me clarify that. I was dismayed at what the articles pointed me towards. All the time I had been circling Catholicism, thinking in terms of doctrine and authority and salvation, I had managed to somehow ignore the fact that I was contemplating the Catholic church during a time of great upheaval. I found myself confronted with scism and sexual scandal and allegations of cover-ups and Vatican II this and sedevacantist that and vacant seats and impious popes and illicit popes and illegitimate popes and angry laypeople and apathetic…
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Faith In Exile, Part I
I’ve never until this moment written the following words down, and I’ve only spoken them aloud to my wife. I consider myself a Catholic. I was raised in a non-religious home, although my mother taught us to believe in the God of the Bible, and in His son, Jesus. She allowed us to attend church with friends if we wished, and she prayed with me at my bedside when I was a little fellow. The doctrines — if they can be called doctrines — that I was taught were standard but elusive. The Ten Commandments, and the Sinner’s Prayer, and Jesus waits to be invited into our hearts. But even…