I fully intended to blog yesterday, in spite of its having been a Catechesis Formation Weekend (which always leaves me worn out), but as usual, I just couldn’t get my act together. The fact remains, to my great annoyance, that I am a limited creature, lacking the capacity to do all those good works that I wish to walk in, whether or not they were prepared for me by God. I was especially annoyed by my pathetic mental and physical... Read more
I missed blogging yesterday because of a long training weekend for Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. My church is hosting a Level One Formation, for which people drive upwards of 3 hours one way to attend. We’ve been meeting Friday evenings and all day Saturday roughly once a month for about nine months (with a long break for the Summer and some snow cancelations) and have about two months left. Being able to host this Formation is a dream and... Read more
I’ve been meaning to get a copy of that book, How To Lie With Statistics, but am so backed up, it would take me ages to read it even if I had it to hand. Every time I wander past anything with numbers anywhere online, though, I wonder how I can even know if anything is even true. Are the numbers for real? This was the question upwards in my mind last week when I came across the headline over... Read more
My college-aged child has just had to write a paper for a class she is taking on the Bible. She is not going to a Christian institution. It is our local SUNY–very affordable, especially since she is living at home, and well-rated, apparently. She signed up for the class with some trepidation. The school is full of religious people, but on the whole, students and professors tread very cautiously around matters of faith. This is the first paper for the... Read more
It’s February, the hardest month of the year if you homeschool or live in a cold climate. It’s so dark and short and so cold and long at the same time and somewhere in the middle, usually around the 16th, I’m always sure I had better give up. But then, I suppose by the grace of God, I manage to pull out of the ennui and go into cold and windy March after all. Lately though, as the West has... Read more
Yesterday after church I succeeded in herding a whole flock of young people across town, in the snow, to hear a local production of Mozart’s Requiem. It’s one of my favorite pieces of music, being so tragic and so beautiful, that though it was on the wrong day and at the wrong time of day, I jostled and maneuvered everyone to have that single hour free. All my kids have heard it many times, but never in person, live as... Read more
My new favorite podcast is the Theology Pugcast. I came across it in the midst of listening to That Hideous Strength. It was like something was in the air. I was listening to that uncomfortably prophetic work and they were talking about it all at the same time. This morning I was coming to the final minutes of this episode, about knowledge, when a friend sent me this piece from the New York Times Modern Love section. It’s called “My... Read more
For some reason, I thought that the celebration of MLK was in February, and was therefore surprised to wake up and find the X App telling me it’s this very day. My feed is full of both praise for and recrimination against that person, which must indicate that I am not living in a social media silo but am being exposed to the broad spectrum of available thoughts. Does this constitute winning? Is there a prize? Or a participation trophy?... Read more
Every year I am so tempted to make a heap of resolutions, sure that the mere fact of a year will alter my personality and inclinations for the better. This really will be the year of the New Me, the one where I become “productive” and cease to be plagued by frailty and even sin. I will have the strength of mind and character only to add work and projects to my calendar without ever having to take anything away.... Read more
I’m not living my best life today. In the first place, it is snowing, which is too bad. In the second place, I am steeling myself to spend my evening in a long meeting which is, of course, excessively worthy and virtuous but does mean leaving my fireside and venturing into the snow. In the third place, I’m supposed to be finishing up my long article on the content of Sheila Wray Gregoire which, truth be told, I have had... Read more
Preventing Grace
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