Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
Helen Keller
Redemptive
It’s hard to know what to say now that President Bush has vetoed the Iraq spending bill. Continue reading “Redemptive”
What do we believe in?
I watched a brief excerpt of George Tenet grandstanding about how we knew about Osama bin Laden before 9/11 blah, blah, blah. Continue reading “What do we believe in?”
Mindfulness
This came to me in an email from a Buddhist friend.
Beyond the ubiquity of stress and pain operating in my own life, my motivation to practice mindfulness is fairly simple: Each moment missed is a moment unlived. Each moment missed makes it more likely I will miss the next moment, and live through it cloaked in mindless habits of automaticity of thinking, feeling, and doing rather than living in, out of, and through awareness. I see it happen over and over again. Thinking in the service of awareness is heaven. Thinking in the absence of awareness is hell. For mindlessness is not simply innocent or insensitive, quaint or clueless. Much of the time it is actively harmful, wittingly or unwittingly, both to oneself and to the others with whom we come in contact or share our lives. Besides, life is overwhelmingly interesting, revealing, and awe-provoking when we show up for it wholeheartedly and pay attention to the particulars.– Jon Kabat-Zinn, Coming to Our Senses (Hyperion 2005), 73-74
Finally
In a breaking news story Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio is introducing articles of impeachment. Continue reading “Finally”
St. Francis and the Sultan
Colonel Dan Smith who authors one blogs on my blogroll has a familiar story in his post today. That is the story of St. Francis and the Sultan Malik al Kamil. Continue reading “St. Francis and the Sultan”
Romans 12 and other thoughts
Today Fr. Lou McCormick’s homily at Mt. Irenaeus was about the hope offered by the resurrection. He knew well that we had all been through a week marred by the massacre at Virginia Tech and the endless cycle of violence in Iraq and elsewhere in the world. Continue reading “Romans 12 and other thoughts”
No longer in limbo
Thanks to Pope Benedict XVI unbaptized children are saved. Continue reading “No longer in limbo”
First walk
Tonight after dinner my wife and I decided to take a walk. It’s the first walk of this year. Continue reading “First walk”
People say, “What is the sense of our small effort?” They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time.–Dorothy Day