A recent article features a letter written by the brother of Terry Schiavo to Bishop Lynch of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida.

In the letter, Bobby Schindler says:

"The barbarism and nightmare of Terri's two week death by thirst and starvation will be forever seared into my family's memory. It is incomprehensible to us that a nation supposedly built on basic Judeo- Christian principles would allow something so wicked to happen. That is, until one realizes that just as the Culture of Death made a triumphal entry into our nation in 1973, via legalized abortion, without so much as a whimper of protest from those with the God-given authority to stop it, so now our disabled and elderly are being targeted for death. The bottom line is, when apostolic grace and responsibility are abdicated, innocent people die.[emphasis mine]

This whole idea of Christian quietism, or passivism if you will, has been much on my mind of late. We are living in a major cultural crisis: flagrant pornography passed as entertainment, legal rulings outlawing ordinary observations of our Christian heritage, such as the posting of the Ten Commandments in public venues, and a secularization of culture that makes life cheap.

We live in a world gone mad, in fact, gone mad because "good Christian people" have not had the backbone to say, first, "NO!" and even now, "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH."

Education... our educational system is cultivating generations of sheep prime for social engineering, and parents are not concerned what their children are reading and discussing, or not reading and discussing or learning in the classroom. The fundamentals of education - parts of speech, the multiplication tables and other basic math functions - that actually provide early concrete training in rational thinking have been supplanted by the conveniences of modern technologies.

We are at war, but we are also, as the late Keith Green put it, "Asleep in the Light."

We are supposed to be a countercultural people, living in accordance with the customs and traditions of a Heavenly Kingdom, of which we are subjects and heirs.

There is no question, there can be no complacent waiting for the pendulum to begin to swing back toward center of its own accord; we are the force behind the direction of the pendulum. The time is upon us to awaken from our slumber, abandon our comfort zones, and raise the cry for our nation, yea, our very world, to stop the insanities of atheistic secularism and to begin to return to God.

This generation of believers is responsible for this generation of souls, something else Green proclaimed. We are responsible; we are accountable.

Let us put on the full armor of Christ and engage in the Good Fight.

Lord, have mercy on us.

Standing up for the Truth

You probably know that I participate on several web fora. I don't do a lot of posting, overall, not compared to some, but when I post, I say what I think and unless you can address my thoughts and show me the fallacy of my position, I do not back down.

This gets interesting when posting to other women. Some women are so naive and gullible. They want everyone to be all hearts and flowers and everything to be beautiful all the time .... and part of that sweetness and light is for everyone to just all get along and no one to make waves..........

We can't all be right. If there is a real Truth in the world - and as Catholics we are all about Truth, not some subjective "my truth and your truth," but THE TRUTH - then we have to become adults and accept that compromises from THE TRUTH are a LIE, and LIES are DANGEROUS. We have to take our thumbs out of our mouths and drop the blankie where it lays and take up the Armor of Christ and get with the work God has given us.

That's what I want to do. I hope I can do it gracioiusly, but I'm afraid I'm ... forthright is a word I have encountered lately. I've also been accused of being "mean."

Look, if you want me to take you seriously, don't cry, "You're MEAN!" like some six-year old. Address my position, show me my error. But don't get into personalities, okay?

I have decided -

Reading Christine Northrup's Wisdom of Menopause and I've made some decisions:

1. I am a happy person. I may have the odd "down" moment, but fundamentally I am very happy. I like being me, I like my life... (okay, I'd like to have more money, but not be a millionaire, just ... in the $20s and $30s would be very nice indeed)

2. Men are nice. Two of them jumped to my rescue last Saturday night when I had a flat tire on my way home from a St Pat's "do." One held a door open for me yesterday. Yep! Men are very nice!

3. I am never going to retire. I am going to continue doing church work, writing and teaching until I die.

4. I am going to sqeeze all the Joy out of life that I can. Beginning right now. I'm going to go take my walk, fix my lunch, pick up and deposit my paycheck and pay some bills... visit the library... and just have a fantastic weekend, too. Tomorrow I'm going to Confession, and I'm going to find some local enrichment activity to sink my teeth into, also.

There! It's not much, but it's a start of a life blueprint for the rest of my days, don't you think?

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Biting the hand that feeds me

I've been very fortunate to have had several articles published by the Catholic Match Magazine over the past four months. It's been good experience for me, and my articles have received very gratifying responses.

I don't get paid cash for the work; I'm paid in full membership privileges. Catholic Match is one of those sites you have to pay to participate on. I have full access to all the fora, posting privileges, email, emote, and chat access. I've been quite active since early November, I've made some delightful friends, men and women, and I'm glad I gave it a try -

But I have also decided that this online dating game is not for me.

In fact, I'm even more leery of it now than I was beforehand. I've seen a multitude of couples test the waters and then break up - I've seen women lament that their attempts to make contact with appealing men are ignored, I've seen men lament similar difficulties. The sex-segregated rooms, St. Anne's for the women and St Joachim for the men, are havens of personal revelations that have been an education, to be sure.

I think one of the worst problems with a site like this is that - let's face it: this place attracts men and women who have had no success getting along with people in real life. Except for my buddy Matt, who introduced me to the site (and who joined, I think, as a shortcut to being acquainted with potentially like-minded Catholics while he was brand new to our area - at least, I dearly hope that was all his motive), most people there have histories as long as my arm of failed relationships, many of them abusive and exploitive.

Just last night, one of the "pinkies" (women's room regulars) started a thread complaining how disgusted with the men on the site she is. She's decided to try to make it up with her local boyfriend, a man she has regularly come crying to us about - she caught him smoking dope, she was frightened because he expected physical intimacy from her that she didn't want to give him... but he's there, and he sends her flowers and what the hey, he feeds the homeless at the restaurant he owns, and that of course makes him a Living Saint.

It's a self-perpetuating loony asylum in there.

I was contacted by a fellow this week, a man who'd read my most recent article on chastity as a synonym for modesty and who wanted to thank me - and, while he had the opportunity, to complain about the women on the fora who stalk him and are so disgustingly immodest in their speech and conduct. A series of emails ensued - he sent me 2 to every 1 I sent him - and it quickly became obvious that this disgruntled man has such unrealistic expectations of human behavior that it is impossible to please him. He was particularly offended by the local affectionate term for the men's room: The Cave.

Thinking he was brand new (he's not, he's incognito in a "new" identity so as to "hide" from his former fiancee who stalked him after he broke off their engagement a couple of years ago), I explained that the Cave gets its name as a good-humored tease of the stereotype of men as neanderthals, and as a nod to John Grey, who says that men retreat to "the cave" when they have a problem to solve. This explanation only further offended my correspondant, who challenged me: "What if I were to call you a redneck?"

"Fred, I am a redneck!"

"Well, what about your weight, then? Wouldn't that offend you? It should!"

"Fred, you can call me obese, you can call me fat, you can call me a tub of lard - I really do not care. My weight does not define who I am - it only pertains to one aspect of my overall appearance. It's all a matter of having a SENSE OF HUMOR..." which poor Fred has none, by all appearances.

I'm also impressed, negatively, by the number of women who cling to rotten, abusive relationships with controlling, manipulative, and abusive men - because these guys baited them with romantic gestures and words from the very beginning of their relationships, "It was so perfect! I really thought he was The One!" they lament.

I feel like a bloomin' fish out of water in that website. I feel out of step and increasingly annoyed, disgrunted, and downright ticked off, particularly at the women. I've tried to speak Truth every way I know how - I had an article published called "Reflections on Love," in which I spoke of the difference between attraction, infatuation, and love - and about the dangers of codependency. I take a stand for sense and self-respect in the Pink Room (women's room) every chance I get. I cheer women on, I urge them to respect themselves and not to allow the men they think they love to abuse or exploit them, but to seek healthy, mutually balanced relationships -

It's like talking to a brick wall. Or, like my old Professor told us, a Korean proverb: "Spit straight up. Learn something."

I've dropped out of the Master Chorale. In addition to being swamped through Easter, I feel increasingly a need to cultivate LOCAL relationships and social outlets. It's ridiculous to place all my energies in relationships with people 86 miles away when I have a community here to cultivate and engage in. I don't know whether I'll ever see my Chorale friends again - and that makes me terribly sad. They are dearer to me than I ever expected them to be. But it's time to live in the real world, in my own community-

Yes, this community I've been wanting to escape for thirty years -

and I suppose this is the place to begin.

Rejection #1

Catholic Digest has turned down the golden opportunity to reprint "In Celebration of Holy Friendship," which was published by Catholic Match Magazine in January. One down, indeterminate number to go.

One of the reasons I am NOT going for my Teaching Certification

I subbed at the local high school yesterday morning. Got to school, got out of my car, and was crossing the driveway when a group of young men hanging out, outside the administrative building, were heard saying "shit." I called out to them, "Hey guys, watch the language." And they quieted down, but not one of them apologized.

A couple standing at the corner of the building were engaged in a full-body embrace, his hands were moving all over her, and they were engaged in a major liplock. I would have said something to them, too, except about that time I saw...

A teacher, "on duty," one presumes, since he was standing out in the grass facing toward the building as if he were there to supervise and police the action - only his nose was buried in a book and he didn't even look up when I called to the boys about their language. I walked up to him and said, "Excuse me, are you going to deal with that couple, there?"

He looked up, startled, glanced at the snogging couple and shrugged his shoulders. "There's nothing I can do about it, they can do whatever they want before school starts."

"Since when! According to the student handbook, which I am required to operate under, there are certain kinds of conduct these kids can't engage in on campus at any time!" He obviously could not have cared less. And, I might add - this is the side of the building facing the drop-off point for the kids being brought to school by their parents - dozens if not a hundred parents had a great view of this couple indiscriminately making out before school started.

I am so tired to the bone of being the lone ranger of understanding that the way these kids behave in public is the tip of the iceberg of how they're behaving in private. I am so tired of double standards being held to in the public schools. I am so tired of overhearing girls talking about the most outrageous topics - what oral sex tastes like is one example of a topic I've heard more than twice in recent weeks, and who's a dyke -

Teachers can't teach nouns and verbs or require the memorization of multiplication tables. Good literature is being abandoned in favor of trash like The Chocolate War. And conduct going through the absolute toilet. I'm so mad I could spit nails.

And I have people telling me I need to be practical and go get my certification requirements so I can be held hostage by this rapidly-disintegrating educational system for the remainder of my professional life? No, thank you!

It's Hard to Post Daily!

Okay, Maybe I'm a lazy slug, but I just cannot seem to get my act together to post every day. I don't know how "Angela Messenger" does it. Or any of my other blogger friends. I'm working on a couple of magazine articles (I just had my fourth article published with Catholic Match Magazine and am waiting to hear back on a possible reprint of one of those with Catholic Digest - please keep your fingers crossed!). Blogging might be a very good way to "Prime the Pump" - after all, "Celebration of Holy Friendship" (the article I'm hoping will be picked up by Catholic Digest) was the result of a blog entry I almost made but decided I wanted to develop as an article.

But right now it feels almost as if blogging and posting in various web fora just diffuses the energy I possess. I'm going to have to give this some more thought and prayer.