Category: Life

No, not this.

Not the Americanized festival of costume parties and children dressed as monsters mooching candy door-to-door.

I mean the day before All Saints Day!

Now, I’m not against a little harmless fun, I just wanted to remind us all of the more edifying aspects of this day in the calendar.

As usual, we humans have lost touch with those things that are meant to build up our souls, the things that make us think. Instead, we prefer a brief moment of blissful forgetfulness that life is hard.

Damn the future! Pass the cider!

So what’s up with the Feast of All Saints?

Continue reading “Happy All Hallows Eve!”

It’s Monday, the sun is shining, the squirrels are scurrying about, the birds twittering happily, red and gold leaves are trembling in the autumn breeze…it’s all so delightful that I thought I’d give you a real downer of a post.

I recently heard an interview on NPR (Yes, I listen to NPR occasionally. Purely for anthropological reasons I assure you) with Ann Doswett Johnston, a recovering alcoholic, who’s the author of a new book discussing her addiction entitled, Drink.

In it, she discusses the double-sided coin of feminism, which has empowered women to drink like a man does without any stigma attaching to them, while acknowledging that because women are built differently (ya think?), they are more likely to abuse alcohol. She further points to the aggressive marketing of liquor companies aimed directly at young women. National statistics seem to support her claim of a rise of alcoholism in women, especially among the ranks of the college aged and young professionals.

Continue reading “It’s Not My Fault”

I’ve written before about the Christian view of life and death so this will be a short post.

It seems to me that we westerners—and by that I mean western civ—dislike talking about death, much less thinking about it. There’s no time in the day for dwelling on unpleasant subjects when there’s so much to be done!

If we ever do take a moment to reflect that death is coming for us some day, it’s usually only when someone close to us dies, and then only fleetingly. It’s an uncomfortable thought, vaguely disconnected from the life we’ve constructed for ourselves. However, like Hamlet, we wonder what dreams may come when we’ve shuffled off this mortal coil, and it gives us pause.

Not so the Christian—or so it should be. The Christian knows that this life is a pilgrimage leading to our true home of blessedness with God, therefore he has hope. But the Christian also prays along with the Psalmist, that he might have the wisdom to number his days, realizing that life is indeed short and that he must give an account of it to God.

Honestly, for me, that thought is terrifying. Terrifying enough to compel my repentance? So far, painfully slowly. I pray that God will grant me time, because I have a great deal to answer for.

Still, I am hopeful as I should be. Like my patron St. Dismas, I recognize who it is that judges me. I know Him to be merciful. He knows that I am but dust.