There must be more than one moral to this story...

I ought not to laugh, but I can't help it - it's just too........
http://www.wral.com/news/strange/story/1604949/

Maybe people who have neglected repairs to houses, left them vacant too long, not kept up wiht mowing... ? What do you think?

He's done it now -

Oh, that Bubba has really gone and done it now. Woke me up at 6:30, "talking" to me a mile a minutes - then starts making the most disgusting noise...
The damned cat had brought a half-eaten rat up onto my bed. Absolutely disgusting! Nasty! Revolting! GROSS!

When God says "I Love You"

It often doesn't come with trumpet blasts and verifiable miracles. Sometimes it comes with the bluebird perched on a branch of the dogwood right outside the living room window - or the vivid blue of the spiderwort in the roadside bank.

Returning from my evening walk, just a few minutes ago, a bit of movement from the other side of my house caught my eye; it was three deer. I'm sorry that I did not have my camera with me, and they were too far away to have gotten a decent photo anyway. They stood, frozen in their suspicious awareness of me. By the time I reached the back door, they were bounding toward the woods at the back of the field.

I often see deer tracks cutting into the sand in my yard, but it is not as common as I would enjoy to see them so close to the house in broad daylight. It was truly a great treat, and it felt as if God were sending me a brief love letter.

Prayers for Tammy Faye -

Tammy Faye Messner, former wife of shamed and ousted televangelist Jim Bakker, is dying of cancer, according to her son, Jay.

What I find even more shocking than Jim Bakker's grievous and scandalous misconduct, back in the day, is the revelation that Jay Bakker is connected to the gay cult, the Metropolitan Community Church, according to the article linked, above.

May God have mercy on Tammy Faye, grant her a peaceful death and eternal salvation, and deliver her and her family from all evil.

Go, Father Z, Go!

Father Z demonstrates how our dear Papa Bennie is making all the right people mad these days -
Pray for the health and safety of our dear Papa! And pray for the health of the Church Universal.

Having introduced you to Bubba....

I thought you might like to see what Precious looks like. She's a small cat, only about ten pounds, max? but she'll stand down a big old dog like Tucker, who weighs probably close to 80 lbs.

I'm going to start a new cuss word -

CHIGGERS!
Yep. Sounds absolutely scandalous, doesn't it?

It should. I'm house- and pet-sitting for friends this week, lovely home about eight miles from my home. I spend nights there and come home to my place to work in the mornings. I bring Tucker, the dog, with me.

Tucker, if you are interested, is a sharpei-golden retriever mix.

On Tuesday, I decided that what I really wanted to do, while the weather was so nice and moderate and dry, was to spray the poison ivy that's threatening to take over my yard again. So I mixed up Round-Up (the only time I use this stuff is on poison ivy) and headed outdoors. A stroll along the driveway led to a stroll around the back yard, which led to a stroll in the woods...

Tucker has come back with ticks (so much for the value of Frontline) and I, my friends, am covered in chigger bites. My waist, arms, legs...

Yep - definitely worthy of becoming a cuss word. Forget those words alluding to bodily functions - let a new generation of profanity arise, founded in disgust over objects not wholly-enough separate from ourselves: CHIGGERS.

Next new cussword: tobacco hornworms!

Happy Fourth of July

We are experiencing very mind weather here this year - it was in the low 60s this morning and only mid-80s now. I picked tobacco hornworms off the tomato plants, tried to mow the yard (mower choked out and so I'll have to try after it - and I - "rest" a bit). After while, I'm going to check where I can take Tucker and see some FIREWORKS.

and I splurged and had a bowl, a big bowl, of chocolate ice cream!

Y'all have fun, stay cool, try to behave, now.

How will your obituary read?

Once again, the obituary read, "She was an avid golfer...." Down here in golf country, that's not surprising - most people move here from other parts of the country for the golf, when they retire.

But it's sad, too, that a life that has ended, a soul sent on its way to God for the Final Judgment, should be celebrated and remembered for something so superficial as chasing a little ball around and trying to hit it into a little hole in the ground.

When I die, I want my obituary to read of my conversion, my love of God and His Church, my eagerness to share the Faith... I don't know that it would, since my survivors are hardly likely themselves to care about such things. But it's what I aspire to.

How should we live, in order to merit a more substantial memorial than "she was an avid golfer"?

Bubba

THIS
is
the
cat
-

That caught the rat
That joined the mouse
Brought out of the rain
And laid in the hall
(Both dead)
That woke me up at 4:30 a.m.
Meowing to announce his prowess
and Scared me to pieces -
All in the house that Laura built!

Happy Saturday!

I went across the creek to a produce stand this a.m. to pick up a cantalope for breakfast (I am determined to TRY to "do it right" in this weight-loss business, and that means eating three meals a day - so I have to learn to eat breakfast of some description, right?) -

I love this time of year! Even with flies and other bugs (I did put a fresh fly strip up in the kitchen this a.m. - flies will slip in the open windows and door especially in the face of a weather front) - I love the way everything smells, and the way I feel.

The produce had just come out of the cooler. I wish they'd leave it out, but it would go overripe in no time if they did that. We need to develop a better marketing system for fresh produce, you know? - anyway, the cantalope was warm enough to have a light perfume to it and a nice firm texture, so I bought it, and in a few minutes I'll go into the kitchen, cut it up and eat it with a 1/2-cup of cottage cheese. Wonderful flavor combinations!

and I bought a small basket of peaches. Six peaches in a basket for $2.50 - that's a little more than $.40 per peach! ridiculous! but we're lucky to have any peaches at all after the hard freeze, Easter weekend.

And then - the Lamberts have just started carrying flowers this year - I found the sweetest flower. Have you ever heard of - Indian feathers, I think it's called? It's sweeping grassy stems with the most deliciously pale, delicate pink blossoms. I just had to have one - at $4.00 for a little plant.

I got the first squash out of my garden yesterday, both yellow and zucchini. I picked the little squash while they were still tiny enough the blossoms were still attached. Later on today I'm going to try a squash blossom omelet from the book French Women Don't Get Fat. the squash themselves, I sauteed last night in butter and olive oil - they were crisp but light and had the most wonderful flavor!

I've struggled all these years with self-image, not knowing what to do with my womanhood - all those "feminine gifts" seeming so alien to me. I feel as if the blockage is being shifted, and bit by bit, in trickles and sometimes gushes, like water escaping a dammed-in pond, I'm discovering what a delight it is to be a woman, and to live as a child of God, revelling in His many gifts of beauty and sweetness.

Happy Summer Saturday, y'all!

Gee, Angela - give a gal a chance to recover -

from a trip to the dentist's!
I thought the tooth was going to have to come out; instead my favorite "Caters to Cowards" (yep! that's me!) dentist - Mark Thompson - actually was able to do a gorgemous composite filling. My chipped incisor looks like new, and my poor old molar looks good enough to move around to the front of my mouth!

but I do need a nap. Badly.

Hello Again, Naturally -

Back in... March, was it? I announced my intentions to drop off the face of the earth where Catholic Match is concerned. Well, it wasn't as easy as I thought.

One of the reasons these sites are so popular is that the fora are entertaining. CM offers the options of on-site emails and brief messages they call "emotes" - a charming easy way to exchange brief messages between members. It's fun.

And for a gal living with two cats, it's an easy and mostly-pleasing distraction.

Okay - I'll make a public confession: I also had a little bit of a "following" over there - a group of women ranging in age from their late teens to their 60s, who thought (or at least said) I am wise and witty and simply wonderful...

Not wonderful enough to stay in touch with now that I've actually pulled the plug and removed my profile, mind you... ah, the public are such a fickle bunch! LOL -

But certainly wonderful enough to gush to me and generally feed my ego in a major way.

So - I'm back. and frankly, I'm not sure I have an awful lot to say. I wrote four articles for CM/4Marks magazine - you can go to www.4marks.com and click on the magazine link: look for my wit and wisdom (choke!) in January, February, March and May. The March article is trash - literally a rough draft I sent to the editor because he was begging me to send him something - so of course it is the article that has received the most attention. My best article, "Spiritual Warfare," for the May issue, is buried in the Apologetics section while a poem of questionable quality and an over-circulated email text received Headline status.

I want to break into paying markets. That is my career goal for this summer.

and, meantime, it wouldn't hurt to posts in here more often, even pontificating a bit and being a general BORE, right?

I see I get an average of 3 views per day. Angela - how many of those are yours, Dear Heart? Well, here's a crumb. We'll see how long I can sustain this blogging stuff this time.

Love y'all - you're in my prayers.

Holy Week - Triduum

I love the Triduum. The 3-act drama celebrating the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord is my favorite time of the year.

It is grueling, through, particularly for our priests, who have extensive meetings and extra Masses with the Bishops this week (for this is the week we also remember how Christ established the Holy Priesthood) I didn't get to go to a chrism Mass this year, over which I'm rather disappointed.

For me, the work begins this evening, with the Mass of the Lord's Supper. It's a bilingual Triduum, and the combined choirs are splitting off the music between us. The "Anglo" choir is not doing much tonight, but Father did as me to lead the Pange, Lingua and Tantum Ergo.

My friend Stephanie pointed out a couple weeks ago that the Enemy of our souls, Satan, really hates this time of year and works overtime to trip us up and cause us suffering and temptation. I had never thought of it before, but this year it's quite clear she's right.

Could it be in part because this year I'm engaged in a 54-day novena, the first of which ends... on Good Friday?

This means, to me, that we are particularly obligated to hold one another up during this Holy Season. Even when I don't "feel" like it, even when I'm convinced I'm a loser and a dope and when I feel like I'm on the brink of craziness, I will pray for you. God bless and keep you - may He be glorified through us.

Catalinni - Final update

She joked about being voted off the island, but no one wanted to see her leave. God had other plans, though, and yesterday, at about 12:45 Pacific Time, my dear friend Catalinni entered Eternity.

I posted about her almost two years ago, when I was a new blogger - you can find that in the archives.

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and may perpetual Light shine upon her. May her soul, and all the souls of the faithful departed, rest in peace. Amen.

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?

Do You Know Your Catechism?

You are a 100% traditional Catholic!

 

Congratulations! You are more knowlegeable than most modern theologians! You have achieved mastery over the most important doctrines of the Catholic Faith! You should share your incredible understanding with others!

Do You Know Your Baltimore Catechism?
Make Your Own Quiz

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.