Tuesday, August 30, 2011
My Tin Cup
I hate having to get out the tin cup. It's embarrassing at best. I got hit with a huge bill this month that has me fighting to keep my nose above the water. If you are able and feel so inclined, my "tin cup" is just to the right. Many thanks.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Accepting Abundance: Can't Even Go to the Park
Accepting Abundance: Can't Even Go to the Park: The same people who say I shouldn't impose my morality on them, are imposing immorality on me and my children to the point that I literally ...
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Don't Swim In Flood Waters After A Huricane!
You don't see this in Arizona . . ever!
Well, it was a good laugh anyway! Thanks, Steve, for keeping the record straight! Click here for the real story.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Shameless Popery: The D.C. Earthquake and the One-Armed Jesus Statue...
Shameless Popery: The D.C. Earthquake and the One-Armed Jesus Statue...: With all the talk about the damage that the recent earthquake here did to the Washington Monument and the spires of the Anglican Washington...
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Hacked Road Sign In Flagstaff.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Catholic Is As Catholic Does
Joe Biden has proven beyond a doubt that he IS NOT CATHOLIC. A Catholic, by definition, is someone who believes that everything the Catholic Church teaches was revealed by God. And if you believe that, you live, vote, teach, preach, and behave accordingly. Consequently, I can say without even ruffling a hair on the head of my conscience, Joe Biden is not Catholic.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Phoenix diocese cathedral won't allow girl altar servers
Phoenix diocese cathedral won't allow girl altar servers
Bless you, Fr. Lankeit for your courage! I get so frustrated when people complain that changes like this that return us to our traditional way is a step "backwards." The whole point of being Catholic is to worship God in the way He prescribed. Unlike our Protestant brothers and sisters, we aren't supposed to reinvent the wheel every few years. The Catholic Church isn't a "program" it's the original Church. God bless those courageous priests who preserve our heritage.
Bless you, Fr. Lankeit for your courage! I get so frustrated when people complain that changes like this that return us to our traditional way is a step "backwards." The whole point of being Catholic is to worship God in the way He prescribed. Unlike our Protestant brothers and sisters, we aren't supposed to reinvent the wheel every few years. The Catholic Church isn't a "program" it's the original Church. God bless those courageous priests who preserve our heritage.
The Catholic View of Justification
Scott Hahn posted this on facebook and I just had to snag it. It is a short paper on the Catholic view of Justification written by a Protestant but so clearly stated that I think it brings the whole matter into a short, concise package. I'm going to keep it handy and if possible (at my age) commit some of it to memory.
The last couple of paragraphs are his own take on the subject and are therefore not from a Catholic perspective, but I'm praying that this gentleman continues to research the Catholic perspective. He would make a great Catholic writer. I like his last name also.
To read this paper, go to the top of the blog page and click "Justification."
The last couple of paragraphs are his own take on the subject and are therefore not from a Catholic perspective, but I'm praying that this gentleman continues to research the Catholic perspective. He would make a great Catholic writer. I like his last name also.
To read this paper, go to the top of the blog page and click "Justification."
You Are My God!
Fr. Stan Fortuna has the honor of carrying Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament; Tony Melendez sings "You Are My God."
Teacher Removed From the Classroom For Telling It Like It Is
What scares me most about this article is that they don't even hide the fact that educators are working hard to change the moral structure of our nation. They made it clear that the indoctrination of our children is their task and that our children are to be taught that homosexuality is as good and wholesome as a traditional man/woman/children family unit. They are also teaching, by their reaction to Jerry Buell's position, that anyone who holds his position is to be rejected and even ejected from his teaching profession. This is a "Teacher of the Year" kind of teacher. The kind that really loves to teach and who does it well. The kind I hope my Grandchildren get as they study in the public school system. I just pray they have not all been exterminated from the teaching profession by the time they get to the upper grades.
Is anyone else feeling like an endangered species?
Is anyone else feeling like an endangered species?
Saturday, August 20, 2011
My father was a porn addict | LifeSiteNews.com
My father was a porn addict LifeSiteNews.com
I found this article enlightening and it confirmed what I believe about families where sexuality is distorted and even exaggerated in a child's upbringing. I can identify with how this girl saw herself and how it created problems even in adulthood.
God is indeed the great healer and I've experienced so much of his healing. I must admit though, that even now, with so much progress having been made, I am still watching God excavate the remnants of my misshapen foundation and rebuilding and reshaping his child in his own image. The key is to give God permission to dig and to have a willingness to be remade.
I found this article enlightening and it confirmed what I believe about families where sexuality is distorted and even exaggerated in a child's upbringing. I can identify with how this girl saw herself and how it created problems even in adulthood.
God is indeed the great healer and I've experienced so much of his healing. I must admit though, that even now, with so much progress having been made, I am still watching God excavate the remnants of my misshapen foundation and rebuilding and reshaping his child in his own image. The key is to give God permission to dig and to have a willingness to be remade.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Left To Tell - Immaculee Ilibagiza
I just finished reading "Left to Tell" by Immaculee Ilibagiza. I had no idea what had happened in Rwanda. Maybe it just seemed too far away to be of much interest. But having read this book my heart is broken over the hatred that so many have for others just because they are a little different. Immaculee's family had raised her to love as Jesus loves and they knew no such hatred when they were young and innocent. Then this horrible war broke out.
I have always wondered how strong I would be in the face of persecution. I held my breath with Immaculee in the bathroom where she and several other women hid for their lives while listening to the killing and the hatred all around them. God was so faithful and so close to her as she spent hours and hours every day in deep prayer, clutching her murdered father's rosary in her hand. Graces like that don't flow every day of our lives. They comes as the suffering demands them of us. I was so blessed and encouraged to live through this journey through Immaculee's story. Great is His fatihfulness!
I have always wondered how strong I would be in the face of persecution. I held my breath with Immaculee in the bathroom where she and several other women hid for their lives while listening to the killing and the hatred all around them. God was so faithful and so close to her as she spent hours and hours every day in deep prayer, clutching her murdered father's rosary in her hand. Graces like that don't flow every day of our lives. They comes as the suffering demands them of us. I was so blessed and encouraged to live through this journey through Immaculee's story. Great is His fatihfulness!
Monday, August 15, 2011
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Monday, August 8, 2011
Consult Your Dreams
"Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.
Pope John XXIII"
Pope John XXIII"
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Leaving the Saints by Martha Beck
I gave a chunk of last weekend to reading Martha Beck's book "Leaving the Saints." A friend had told me that it reminded him of my story. I put the title on the back shelf of my mind and spent a couple years putting it off. So when I found it on Amazon for a song, I ordered it. Then it sat on one of my book shelves for a few more months before I decided it pick it up. I barely put it down after that until I had finished. If you had been a fly on my wall during that weekend, you would have found me frequently speaking out loud to God about how freakishly similar Martha's story was to my own. There is a whole section of pages that I've turned the corners down on because I want to read them again. Those pages, where Martha talks about her mother's reaction to Martha's erupting memories, were so eerily familiar that I think it is going to take me a while to fully appreciate how helpful they have been to me.
I have always been hurt most by what my mother didn't do than by what my father did. My mother loaded me down with the weight of the eternal souls of those who loved and revered my father's preaching. Martha was loaded down with the weight of the "testimonies" of the Mormon's who held on to Mormonism because of her father's apologetics work. Both of our mothers seemed to vacillate back and forth between acknowledging that their respective husbands were guilty and defending their husbands integrity. I think I found that almost as confusing as our fathers' preaching of purity while defiling their own children.
I called my friend who had recommended the book and told him what an impact the book had had on me. He told me Martha's father's name and encouraged me to google his name and see what I found. What I found was equally familiar. I found a Mormon site where the writer was speaking shamefully about Martha and her "crazy" accusations against her father. Her father, being a very revered man in the Mormon community, was held up as saintly and venerable while the victim was treated with disdain. There is the real pain. While Martha and I both realize that our fathers are probably as much a product of their own upbringing as we are of ours, we also realize that the only way to end the cycle and stop the generational sickness is to bring the dirty secret out in the light and seek help for all the victims, including the perpetrators. I'm sure neither of us desire our father's demise or destruction, but we know from experience that unless the generational infection is lanced and drained, it will just continue to fester.
My brother accused me of blackmail when I posted my story and wrote my father and asked him to bring our own family sickness out into the light. He claimed my only motivation was revenge. But as Martha made it so clear, the only cure for darkness is openness and light. She wrote about how she loved her father and felt such a genetic connection to him and to how his mind worked and even to his sense of humor. She longed for the secret pain between them to be extracted and replaced by truth and understanding. I often feel the same way.
I watch my brother's Twitter account all the time because I learned of my mother's death on facebook and I will never forget what that was like. I had to fight to get the right to have a private viewing with her before she was buried. I feel I have the right to know when my father passes.
But while watching my brother do his reformed thing on Twitter, I often laugh out loud at his familiar sense of humor and at his righteous indignation when people openly offend a holy God. I know how he thinks, I know how he sees the world and there is a kinship there that will never exist with anyone else. But his last words to me were "stay away from me, my family and my house." But I miss him.
Truth is the friend of those at peace. I long for the day my father and brother lay down their swords and embrace truth. Life is too short to live without peace.
I have always been hurt most by what my mother didn't do than by what my father did. My mother loaded me down with the weight of the eternal souls of those who loved and revered my father's preaching. Martha was loaded down with the weight of the "testimonies" of the Mormon's who held on to Mormonism because of her father's apologetics work. Both of our mothers seemed to vacillate back and forth between acknowledging that their respective husbands were guilty and defending their husbands integrity. I think I found that almost as confusing as our fathers' preaching of purity while defiling their own children.
I called my friend who had recommended the book and told him what an impact the book had had on me. He told me Martha's father's name and encouraged me to google his name and see what I found. What I found was equally familiar. I found a Mormon site where the writer was speaking shamefully about Martha and her "crazy" accusations against her father. Her father, being a very revered man in the Mormon community, was held up as saintly and venerable while the victim was treated with disdain. There is the real pain. While Martha and I both realize that our fathers are probably as much a product of their own upbringing as we are of ours, we also realize that the only way to end the cycle and stop the generational sickness is to bring the dirty secret out in the light and seek help for all the victims, including the perpetrators. I'm sure neither of us desire our father's demise or destruction, but we know from experience that unless the generational infection is lanced and drained, it will just continue to fester.
My brother accused me of blackmail when I posted my story and wrote my father and asked him to bring our own family sickness out into the light. He claimed my only motivation was revenge. But as Martha made it so clear, the only cure for darkness is openness and light. She wrote about how she loved her father and felt such a genetic connection to him and to how his mind worked and even to his sense of humor. She longed for the secret pain between them to be extracted and replaced by truth and understanding. I often feel the same way.
I watch my brother's Twitter account all the time because I learned of my mother's death on facebook and I will never forget what that was like. I had to fight to get the right to have a private viewing with her before she was buried. I feel I have the right to know when my father passes.
But while watching my brother do his reformed thing on Twitter, I often laugh out loud at his familiar sense of humor and at his righteous indignation when people openly offend a holy God. I know how he thinks, I know how he sees the world and there is a kinship there that will never exist with anyone else. But his last words to me were "stay away from me, my family and my house." But I miss him.
Truth is the friend of those at peace. I long for the day my father and brother lay down their swords and embrace truth. Life is too short to live without peace.
Monday, August 1, 2011
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