Still Writing

So, I know I haven't posted in a while, but I've been busy with lots of things. I'm still writing but now I have an article that was sent to the entire Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Go read it at Phaith Magazine if you live far away. If you are in Philly, read Phaith Magazine when it hits your mailbox!

College Scam

I knew there was a reason that I love John Stossel. He has a great article on Fox News contemplating the value of a college education. It seems totally unnatural to me, now, to have a society where the best years of a person's life are spent mostly on vacation with some time spent sitting in classrooms to take exams.

NFP Awareness Week

This week is NFP Awareness Week. A week I typically do not remember until after it is over. Looks like I'm catching the wave this time. Natural Family Planning blog's author Jessica Smith is featured at Fathers for Good. Check it out.

Habemus Archbishopem!

If I ever had to move, there are two dioceses that I would have picked: Arlington or Denver. Now it seems that the Good Lord is bringing Denver to me! Welcome Archbishop Chaput! May your time serving this flock be as blessed as your time serving Denver.

High Culture

We had the privilege of attending a great art show and gourmet buffet for an amazingly talented friend. It was simply marvelous. Good food. Spectacular location. A grand mingling of people from all different walks of life. And fireworks on the waterfront! Visit her page, buy something!

Matches made in Heaven

A book review of: Come My Beloved by Ellen Gable Hrkach and Kathy Cassanto

I often think that everyone is just like me, similar inside if not on the outside. I thought all Catholics who married would meet in college and get married after graduation like myself and most of my friends. I assumed they would follow a similar path of coming to better love God by learning to love another. Come My Beloved shows that Catholic marriages are not all the same and have as much beautiful variation as the glorious art which has decorated cathedrals over the life of the Church.

The true love stories in this anthology are each unique and inspiring. God’s ways are truly amazing and refreshing to my faith. There are the college stories, like mine. There are stories of widows and widowers finding each other. There are stories of conversion. There are stories of long time friendships blossoming. Each story shows the hand of God in a special way, working to create a new married life by bringing together those who will help each other grow.

King of Prussia Car Show

I might even become a car guy, once I learn how to change my own oil, thanks to this great event:

The King of Prussia Car Show

There is still time to enter if you have a car to show off. I promise to come by and stare as if I know a distributor cap from a manifold valve.

Too pertinent

Our Holy Father could be speaking directly to me with this item. Doing the math, either my wife or I was out of the house every night this week. It's terrible but hard to stop with our many and sundry activities and it keeps us from our deepest mission which we believe is to be social and have families over for dinners and parties and random hanging out. There is a huge dearth of social capital that has been brought about through TV and Entertainment destroying social bonds and through the home becoming a place to stop and refuel and sleep before running to meetings and games and events. We feel it is critical to be home-bodies and build ties of affection but that is a daunting task in this day of constant connection.

Metre Traitor

Never, thought I, will I betray
the rhyme and rhythm of my day.
Learned in my first class of grammar
I would smash poetic traitors with a mighty hammer
and crush all in a manner of Thor
‘til they would rhyme forevermore.
And lo’ upon this aged time
I picked up a classic book of rhyme
a slim tome of Canterbury Tales
at the close of winter, to warm my entrails.
written long ago by wizened Chaucer,
who may have drunk his tea from a saucer,
I discovered that rhyme, though classically executed,
can still be a horror worse than a sky polluted.
English being a poor language to rhyme in
with phrases adjusted, as if the time in
English grammar was for naught, since
all the words seem to do is mince
across the page and carry
onward and do tarry
taking an inordinate amount of space and time
to complete what should be a shortened rhyme
slave to a meter and a rhyming pattern which
I though older and modern, am unable to ditch.

Cognitive Dissonance

I thought that the scandal had already come as close as it could to my life. With this announcement, it comes even closer. I am familiar with at least one of the accused. I am saddened and confused and somewhat ambivalent depending on the current train of my thought.

I pray for the victims and the accused and any who are wrongly accused. I pray for the cases, that the truth may come out and just resolution accorded.

Open and Shut

I love being on the various e-mail lists of good organizations. Just received this gem which was written by Archbishop Fulton Sheen.

Look at Me!

The March for Life made it to the WaPo and there I am in the background!