UPDATED: Go here for a better list of ways to help with immediate needs and longterm recovery. One of the difficulties with assisting with flood relief in South Carolina is that unless you are in the immediate area, you may not be able to physically get to a location in order to offer assistance in-kind. The National Guard collects donations every April 15th (and are doing good work with those funds, thank you), and I’m told a number of dubious... Read more
We sent our son out to test the water table in the yard for us, in order to assess how likely it was we’d have trouble with septic tank. We live on sandy soil (well-drained to a fault) on the highest ground there is in our area — you can literally only go downhill from our home. We’re on a massive bluff. (Contrary to a distant reader’s mistaken assumption, the western two-thirds of SC are rolling hills, not flatland). In sum: We’ve got... Read more
Still have power? Internet? Here’s a fun game you can play at home to add verve to your obsessive trolling of SC flood photos. (Me? Do that?) What you’ll need is a photo with a caption and Google Earth. Using those clues, you, too, can identify which dams have failed and which are (probably) still standing. You can do it all from the comfort of your living room, and with no pesky PhD to bother about. If there’s not... Read more
If you are following the news, you know that South Carolina’s been hit with epic flooding this weekend. We are resisting the urge to go out looking for too much trouble, so I refer you to the wonders of other parts of the internet for the big dramatic photos. Meanwhile, a tutorial on why we are inundated so dramatically, when there’s not even a real hurricane experience going on or anything. We Don’t Get This Weather Because I live on... Read more
To grieve is a natural right. It is a human right. We have the right to grieve for the suffering and death of those we have known and loved intimately, and we have the right to grieve for those we have not known at all. It suffices that another person is a fellow human being, a person endowed with inherent dignity and worth; that person’s suffering or death is, by its very nature, worthy of our sorrow. The moment... Read more
BISMARK, ND – Following on the heels of the lawsuit against Michigan-based Catholic hospital Trinity Health Corporation, the ACLU has stepped into the breech and targeted the often-overlooked enemy of ‘choice’: Catholic Universities. In a lawsuit against the University of Mary, lawyers for the ACLU attest, “The university serves non-Catholic students, but fails to recognize those students have the right to choose whether or not to kill innocent people over whom they hold the power of life and death.” Planned... Read more
This excellent post by Max Lindenman prompted a question from a reader about repentance and forgiveness of sins. The question was, approximately: Just how sorry for your sins do you have to be in order to be forgiven via the Sacrament of Reconciliation? To begin, some vocabulary terms: “Perfect Contrition” is sorrow for your sins because you are sorry for offending God, whom you love. Perfect contrition alone is sufficient to reconcile yourself with God. (You are obliged, all the... Read more
As I write this I’m watching on a hurricane and eating half-decent soup. Perfect for today’s feast, because in Therese-like fashion there are no portion sizes, you put in the amount you’ve got. 1) Decide you want to put more protein into one of your children. Walk around the grocery store looking for possibilities. 2) Pick up a package of “beef shanks for stew.” That looks all earthy and healthy and protein-y and not expensive, right? 3) Check the... Read more
My top two picks for St. Jerome posts today are Amy Welborn at Charlotte Was Both and Julie Davis at Happy Catholic. Take a look. Definitely read the poem aloud, well worth your time. Meanwhile, from the inbox, two evangelization initiatives from ladies who have all the Gospel spirit of St. Jerome but not so much the flame-war thing going on. First, an update from J.C. Crowley at The Catholic Navigator: Things here are at breakneck speed . . . Along... Read more
One of the favorite bogeymen of freedom-from-religion types is the dreaded Religious Reactionary. By day she locks her children away in the log cabin, at night she snuggles under a hand-knit blanket while the wood stove cheerily burns all those books she’s out to ban. In counter-reaction, some Christians work hard to prove their pop-culture bonafides — thank God I’m not like that Pharisee over there. Which brings us to Taylor Swift. I’ve never gone through the trouble of banning Taylor Swift or... Read more
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