Journaling, and such

It's been months since I last posted on this blog, and years since I spent every available moment avidly reading others' posts.

My life continues to unfold in directions unsought and with blissful promise.

I'm still in the shabby house on the hill. There is a fresh gardenia from the garden in a vase, wafting fragrance through the house.

I've been home all day. I get tired... my stomach is unreliable. I ride the train to work now; usually I'm OK; sometimes, I'm not, and I can't shake the sick feeling all day. Sigh.

I cannot work full time AND keep house. I keep telling Dear One this. Over and over. I hope he knows. He is so patient.

He is working as hard as he can to make our home. I love him more each day.

But I digress...

I stopped by Ann Voskamp's blog today (Holy Experience ... linked on the right). She has been doing a series on journaling. Always, her writing brings tears to my eyes. Always, I wish she was my mother.

Journaling is something I didn't do much of for a long time, and now I do. I scribble away for hours during quiet weekends.

Thank God, I am feeling better after this long day of rest.

I needed the heart-rest, as well as the time away from work.

God love you who read this.

A.N. Wilson dismisses the chattering classes of Britain

Like many people who lost faith, I felt anger with myself for having been 'conned' by such a story. I began to rail against Christianity, and wrote a book, entitled Jesus, which endeavoured to establish that he had been no more than a messianic prophet who had well and truly failed, and died.

Why did I, along with so many others, become so dismissive of Christianity?

Like most educated people in Britain and Northern Europe (I was born in 1950), I have grown up in a culture that is overwhelmingly secular and anti-religious. The universities, broadcasters and media generally are not merely non-religious, they are positively anti.

To my shame, I believe it was this that made me lose faith and heart in my youth. It felt so uncool to be religious. With the mentality of a child in the playground, I felt at some visceral level that being religious was unsexy, like having spots or wearing specs.

This playground attitude accounts for much of the attitude towards Christianity that you pick up, say, from the alternative comedians, and the casual light blasphemy of jokes on TV or radio.

It also lends weight to the fervour of the anti-God fanatics, such as the writer Christopher Hitchens and the geneticist Richard Dawkins, who think all the evil in the world is actually caused by religion.

The vast majority of media pundits and intelligentsia in Britain are unbelievers, many of them quite fervent in their hatred of religion itself.

Read it all.

Dennis Prager: Judaism's Sexual Revolution

Why Judaism Rejected Homosexuality

Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity.

This revolution consisted of forcing the sexual genie into the marital bottle. It ensured that sex no longer dominated society, heightened male-female love and sexuality (and thereby almost alone created the possibility of love and eroticism within marriage), and began the arduous task of elevating the status of women.

It is probably impossible for us, who live thousands of years after Judaism began this process, to perceive the extent to which undisciplined sex can dominate man's life and the life of society. Throughout the ancient world, and up to the recent past in many parts of the world, sexuality infused virtually all of society.

Read it all.

What the Rabbi said

Fr. Z posted this article and encouraged bloggers to post it, as well. It is rather remarkable.

Michael Dubruiel, R.I.P.

Please pray for his soul, and for his wife, Amy Welborn, and their family.