. (image via Pixabay) This is a guest post by John Cavanaugh-O’Keefe. John is a father of six, a longtime pro-life activist in the fields of nonviolence and eugenics, and the author of 21 Stranger Claims in the Old Testament. He blogs at Sign of the Crossing. I visited a local mosque last night, for evening prayer. I went there to invite my neighbors to dinner, to dispel some of the fear that is sweeping the nation. A few details:... Read more
(Image via Pixabay) I wasn’t going to start telling Halloween stories until October, but heck. It’s more than halfway through September. The shops are all already stocked with costumes and decorations. You can buy pumpkins at the garden center now. Some houses on my block already have orange lights and scarecrows. Yesterday Rosie and I went grocery shopping and spent ten minutes in the seasonal aisle, trying on hats and masks. I’ll tell my first Halloween story starting now. I... Read more
I’ve seen a quote circulating online: “The truth is like a lion. You don’t have to defend it. Let it loose and it will defend itself.” It’s been going around for a couple of years. I always see it on dramatic-looking memes, with pictures of majestic lions, and always with the citation that the quote is from the ouvre of Saint Augustine, though they never say which book or sermon. I imagine I’ve shared it myself once or twice, since the... Read more
(Image: Mosaic and inscription above the side portal of Saint Mary Church in Emauzy, Prague, Czechia, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. The inscription, mane nobiscum domine, is from Luke 24:29 and reads in English, “Remain with us, Lord.”) In the face of suffering, death and evil it is all too easy (especially for us in the blogosphere) to opine on this and that and take away lessons or remind people of things they should remember but maybe don’t and so forth. We... Read more
(image via Pixabay) I just saw this status from The Friendship Room, a beautiful little charity that works in my town. here is a typical scenario of keeping the poor down. A family of three, grandmother, handicapped mother and mentally challenged son, all renting furniture, washer and dryer, a home without running water or a toilet . They have payday loans to the staggering amount of 1,100.00 a month, They pay off their loans, and are offered another loan, they... Read more
Why the Cross? Oh, so many reasons. I couldn’t tell you them all. Ask me again on the other side of the Jordan, where it’s easier to see. I probably still won’t be able to tell you, but it’ll be clearer. On this side, where we walk in darkness, I can point to the little streaks of dawn creeping up over the horizon, but that won’t tell you the whole of what the sun is. As the stars grow dimmer, you’ll... Read more
It was bedtime. I dread bedtime. Most parents do. Bedtime is the time of day when parents of preschoolers spend approximately three hours begging, cajoling and threatening their children to go to sleep. And then we try various patented parenting techniques, which I’m sure many of you have already begun to type in the combox just now. And those don’t work, but if we admit they don’t work we’re told that they only didn’t work because we are horrible mothers and... Read more
(image via Pixabay) Some days, I have no words at all. Shocking to those of you who have been reading my fountain of words the past six months, I know. But some days I have no words fit to print. Some days, the only way my heart can pray is in song. Today, this is the song: Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel Deliver Daniel, deliver Daniel Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel And why not every man? He delivered Daniel from... Read more
(Image: firefighters outside the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, via Wikimedia Commons) My almost-five-year-old daughter came into the room as I was bent over the laptop. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Oh,” I said. I’m watching some very old news shows, about a scary thing that happened before you were born. I was a teenager at the time. I want to learn about it… I want to try to understand it. So I’m watching…” “What’s all that smoke?” Rose... Read more
(image via Pixabay) My Orthodox friend whose post I shared earlier this week, just posted a photo of her church bulletin on Facebook. She wanted to share a quote it reprinted, from Bishop Nikolaj Velimirovic who has been glorified a saint by the Serbian Orthodox church and whom I had never heard of until now. This quote took my breath away: Bless my Enemies, Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them. Enemies have driven me into Thy... Read more
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