Saturday, June 11, 2011

Belated Quick Takes

I missed the official Friday Quick Takes, but I'm just going to pretend. Thanks to Jen for hosting!



1. What we need most in the world is people who will not violate their principles nor justify their sins. Me included. Amen.

2. How do I get NARAL and NOW and all the other pro-abortion organizations to stop pretending that they speak for women? "Women's issues, women's rights, women's oppression" and all that. They do not speak for me nor for any woman I know. They can only get away with it because the lapdog media allows it.

3. It's nice that Michelle Obama's preferred cause is the promotion of healthy eating. However, if she would promote marriage, she would be doing infinitely more good for the children of our nation, especially for the children in poverty. Her unique status as the first African-American First Lady would give her an incredible amount of credibility and clout in that endeavor. I wonder (in all honesty) why the promotion of intact families is not a bigger priority for the Obamas, especially considering the catastrophic breakdown of the black family in America? Talk about something that could truly have an impact!

4. For those of you who have commented on previous posts (many of whom are new commenters), I hope you know how much I appreciate it! If you are new, and do not get a direct response or thank-you from me, please know that I do pay attention and I do mentally acknowledge every single comment. The best way to get a public response is… keep commenting! :)

5. About a billion of you have said you are coming to Phoenix for a blog meet-up. Where are you? Who will be first? Admittedly, summer is not the best time to come, although it is a dry heat….

6. Go to the last post and sign up to received the book. The list is growing! (By the way, I sent the link to Professor B, and got a lovely response! I love having a blog!!)

7. Went to see Les Miserables the other night. My third time. Truly, such a Catholic play! I remember seeing it when I was a lapsed Catholic, and it stirred my soul (as the transcendent themes of our Faith are wont to do). But to see it as a practicing Catholic, on fire for the Faith? Oh.my.gosh. There really are no words. I love being Catholic, and I am so unworthy. I hope all of you get to watch Les Miz with Catholic eyes one day.

Okay, back to the grind. Hope you are all having a lovely weekend!

19 comments:

  1. I'm glad you takes were late so I could read them TODAY, when I really need them. And by "them" I mostly mean #1, which I certainly struggle with more regularly than I like to admit.

    Thank you!

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  2. I ain't never bought that "dry heat" stuff and I ain't about to start now, but you're free to come visit us when we get our new cardboard box to live in.

    Love you.

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  3. P.S. I don't say "ain't" to annoy you. It's just fun to talk like a Kentuckian sometimes.

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  4. Please send some of that heat to Wisconsin! It didn't even hit 60 the last two days! Not that I am complaining. :) When it is hot here, it is anything but dry!

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  5. I'm coming In the fall! And staying at your house :)

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  6. I think the reason promoting intact families and marriage is not more of a priority is that it also tends to promote keeping a family intact even when it's dangerous. A more helpful approach might be to start at the most basic level and promote respect, both for one's partner and for oneself, within relationships. I'm sure the married readers of this blog would agree: respect for your bodies, respect for your minds, and respect for your rights as human beings are so essential to a proper working relationship, marriage, friendship, or otherwise. Too many broken and split homes were built on foundations of love/lust without respect, which is like mortar with no bricks. While unfortunately there will always be some homes that need to split for the safety of everyone concerned, having the self-respect to not enter a relationship in which one knows one's prospective partner will not give one due respect will minimize the chances of an abusive situation. As someone who escaped an emotionally- and sexually-abusive relationship, I cannot stress enough that a person needs to value themselves enough to make the right decisions about who to allow into his or her life, and until they know that value, relationships and marriage and all they entail should be totally and completely out of the question.

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  7. I have a big issue about #2 also. And I get pretty perturbed with men who say they have no right to comment. I also agree with you whole-heartedly on #3. Sorry, I'll leave it at that so I don't wander into #1. And, I was supposed to move to Phoenix years ago - had my neighborhood, schools, etc. - all picked out - and my husband threw me a curveball and accepted a job offer in Illinois instead! Who knew? We were probably supposed to be next door neighbors!

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  8. Love #3...you should write Michelle with your idea! Then recommend that she read "It Takes A Family" by Rick Santorum, ha! :)

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  9. Ru, I am so glad you did escape your abusive relationship. That is so awful, and I am glad you are safe.

    However, I read your comment and I gave it some time, and I am still scratching my head. The idea that promoting marriage and intact families (a good) would also be promoting abuse and danger (an evil) does not compute at all with me. It's like saying "if we promote going to church on Sundays, then we are promoting people like Jim Jones and other dangerous cult leaders" or something like that, so we must not promote going to church on Sundays. (Sorry, I am sure there is a better analogy.) But of course what I mean is that promoting a good thing does not imply promoting some evil, twisted, false imitation of that good thing.

    Can we not do certain things simultaneously? For example: Promote marriage and intact families (which tend to keep children safe! Much safer than children living with the "mother's boyfriend" which ends in dead babies all too often if you read the headlines), and promote self-respect (which also is better when girls come from intact families, by the way), and promote good decision making, etc.

    It doesn't have to be an either/or.

    One problem these days is that schools and the left are promoting "self-esteem" at the expense of marriage and intact families. It hasn't gone well. In fact, in my exchanges with a sex educator, she claims that using the word "marriage" with the most disadvantaged kids is "judgemental"! Can you even imagine that? Since when did hearth and home and a two-parent family become almost a slur? It's so disheartening.

    You can read that conversation beginning here, if you are interested:

    http://littlecatholicbubble.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-correspondence-with-sex-educator_13.html

    It's very eye-opening.

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  10. Leila,

    I do believe that promoting self-respect (which is not the same thing as self-esteem) and partner-respect does promote families. It is the first step to promoting marriage and families. However, unless people know to build their marriage on mutual respect in addition to love/lust (most of the time when the respect is missing, it's just lust), they're building a marriage on sand. Looking back at your analogy, I would say I'm actually trying to argue that before we can go to church (assuming we are starting with non-practicing Christians here), we need to be aware that there are Jim Jones out there, and that if we here something at church that sounds wrong to us, we should do our best to search for the truth.

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  11. Ru, I don't strictly disagree, but I think the whole problem is solved if we start to teach our children the virtues again. That way, we start out teaching them what is good. Lust of course is a vice. Love, in the Christian understanding, is the highest good. Chastity is a virtue, patience, kindness, fortitude, etc.

    I know I keep harkening back to old posts, but I particularly like to contrast "virtue" with "values". We've gone from teaching one to teaching the other, and it's been catastrophic in my mind:

    http://littlecatholicbubble.blogspot.com/2011/01/values-vs-virtue-and-what-kind-of-man.html

    (It's a humorous post, by the way.I

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  12. On our way out the door to Mass but Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen and for the meeting in Phoenix thing---my husband has already made jokes and asked me if we are going out there to meet you :)Truly, if we are ever out that way, we will have to at least have lunch!

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  13. well I'm no dummy, I'm coming to Phoenix in February honey!!!

    and as for the Michelle Obama bit......100% right-on!

    as the mother to two adopted african children, I can say I wish she would use her position more wisely.

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  14. With some regret, we decided not to see Les Mis, but I have the 10th anniversary production on DVD, so I'll have to watch that again and live vicariously. :) Glad you had a good time!

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  15. i love love love les mis! we used to play the soundtrack and clean the house with my siblings, but i sitll have amazing memories of it. i have never seen it as a catholic though so maybe i'll have to see it again! thanks for that!

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  16. While the music is pretty and some individual storylines moving. And some nice complex characters and sitiations that you can really become emotionally vested in. And some characters who behave in a good Catholic manner, I can't get past the fact that, Les Mis, at it's heart, is a pro-French Revolution book/play and the French Revolution was only dwarfed by the Reformation when it comes to leading souls away from the Church.

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  17. Anon, I don't disagree with you about the French Revolution. I will just add that Les Miz was not set during that French Revolution. If you untie it from any particular revolution, its themes are universal. I often wanted to use the lyrics to some of the songs (particularly the parallels between Jean Valjean's and Javert's personal "revelations") to teach my kids some very Catholic lessons and themes. Amazing stuff in those lyrics! Haven't read the book, probably never will. Also haven't studied that particular revolution, so my view remains untainted. ;)

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  18. Speaking of going to blogger get together are you coming to Houston for Catholic Con? Anyone coming this way?

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  19. I love Les Misérables! It was my favourite book growing up and I must have read it at least twenty times. What touched me most was how Valjean was condemned by the whole society, but given a second chance by the priest (God). So beautiful!

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