A Franciscan, a Benedictine, and a Jesuit were arguing as to which of their orders was the best. In order to solve the difficulty, they wrote a letter to God. In a few days, they received a response:
"Dear Children,
I have heard your question, and want you to know that the great differences among your orders make each of them unique, and each essential to the mission of the Church on Earth. Knowing this, consider the question answered.
Sincerely,
God, O.P."
Recordabar psalmorum meorum in nocte cum corde meo loquebar et scobebam spiritum meum...
Monday, December 24, 2007
Sunday, December 23, 2007
This Day in History
1783 - George Washington returned home to Mount Vernon, after the disbanding of his army following the Revolutionary War.
1788 - Maryland voted to cede a 100-square-mile area for the seat of the national government. About two-thirds of the area became the District of Columbia.
1823 - The poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Clement C. Moore (" 'Twas the night before Christmas...") was published.
1888 - Following a quarrel with Paul Gauguin, Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh cut off part of his own earlobe.
1893 - The Engelbert Humperdinck opera "Hansel und Gretel" was first performed, in Weimar, Germany.
1922 - The British Broadcasting Corporation began daily news broadcasts.
1951 - A National Football League (NFL) championship game was televised nationally for the first time. The Los Angeles Rams beat the Cleveland Browns 24-17. The DuMont Network had paid $75,000 for the rights to the game.
1965 - A 70-mph speed limit was introduced in Britain.
1986 - The experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed the first non-stop, around-the-world flight without refueling as it landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
1987 - Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, serving a life sentence for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ford in 1975, escaped from the Alderson Federal Prison for Women in West Virginia. She was recaptured two days later.
1788 - Maryland voted to cede a 100-square-mile area for the seat of the national government. About two-thirds of the area became the District of Columbia.
1823 - The poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Clement C. Moore (" 'Twas the night before Christmas...") was published.
1888 - Following a quarrel with Paul Gauguin, Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh cut off part of his own earlobe.
1893 - The Engelbert Humperdinck opera "Hansel und Gretel" was first performed, in Weimar, Germany.
1922 - The British Broadcasting Corporation began daily news broadcasts.
1951 - A National Football League (NFL) championship game was televised nationally for the first time. The Los Angeles Rams beat the Cleveland Browns 24-17. The DuMont Network had paid $75,000 for the rights to the game.
1965 - A 70-mph speed limit was introduced in Britain.
1986 - The experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed the first non-stop, around-the-world flight without refueling as it landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
1987 - Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, serving a life sentence for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ford in 1975, escaped from the Alderson Federal Prison for Women in West Virginia. She was recaptured two days later.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Blogdeath
I think it was Facebook that killed the blogs of people like me--people who used a blog as a means of sharing bits about one's life with one's friends. I mean, I was never on here to write anything particularly interesting, nor to share creative work. It was just a vehicle to share stuff.
I think I like this vehicle better than the new one. I should really come back to this older, more traditional, more intellectually demanding style of communication. I should. This teaches me to write, to put cogent thoughts in order, and doesn't involve throwing any objects at anyone else. Nor does this send updates about my life to anyone and everyone who ever lived. On the contrary, if they want to know how I'm doing, they have to come here and find out.
I like that.
I'm putting it on my Facebook.
I think I like this vehicle better than the new one. I should really come back to this older, more traditional, more intellectually demanding style of communication. I should. This teaches me to write, to put cogent thoughts in order, and doesn't involve throwing any objects at anyone else. Nor does this send updates about my life to anyone and everyone who ever lived. On the contrary, if they want to know how I'm doing, they have to come here and find out.
I like that.
I'm putting it on my Facebook.
Friday, December 07, 2007
Oggi
I'm going to try and restart the blog, seeing as how my class schedule next semester is much reduced from my current load, I miss blogging, there are so often things to say and no one to whom they can be said, and somehow it seems to be good for me to write on here occasionally.
That said. Today has been a lousy day, as was yesterday. That strikes me as the sort of fact which ought to keep me from writing, but here I am all the same. There's snow on the ground, which is fun, and I think I have a place to live in the spring as well! Huzzah! I can't remember if the new place has internet, but that can be worked around.
No other news is fit to tell. I'm still engaged, recent life has taught me more and more to love the man I'm marrying--as well as teaching just how great a man he is. (In retrospect, I think the second clause ought to have come first. In any case, the statements are closely related.)
Right now I'm trying to decide if I should attend winter formal in protest, or to boycott winter formal in protest. Hmm. Maybe someday I'll explain what it is I'm protesting.
That said. Today has been a lousy day, as was yesterday. That strikes me as the sort of fact which ought to keep me from writing, but here I am all the same. There's snow on the ground, which is fun, and I think I have a place to live in the spring as well! Huzzah! I can't remember if the new place has internet, but that can be worked around.
No other news is fit to tell. I'm still engaged, recent life has taught me more and more to love the man I'm marrying--as well as teaching just how great a man he is. (In retrospect, I think the second clause ought to have come first. In any case, the statements are closely related.)
Right now I'm trying to decide if I should attend winter formal in protest, or to boycott winter formal in protest. Hmm. Maybe someday I'll explain what it is I'm protesting.
Friday, July 27, 2007
It's for frickin' real, yes.
I really and truly am engaged. To be married.
Ambrose asked me on Thursday, to my utter surprise, joy, shock, and general gooey-emotionalness. In fact, he told several people a couple of outright lies in order to ensure the secrecy of his asking date. It worked.
I didn't say a word for nearly ten minutes.
If that isn't proof of my shock, then I don't know what would be. Anyway. I feel rather strange about putting this on the blog, but then again I think that pretty much everyone knows already. I just decided that there wasn't any reason why the blog couldn't share in the moment of grand importance. So there it is, then.
Ambrose asked me on Thursday, to my utter surprise, joy, shock, and general gooey-emotionalness. In fact, he told several people a couple of outright lies in order to ensure the secrecy of his asking date. It worked.
I didn't say a word for nearly ten minutes.
If that isn't proof of my shock, then I don't know what would be. Anyway. I feel rather strange about putting this on the blog, but then again I think that pretty much everyone knows already. I just decided that there wasn't any reason why the blog couldn't share in the moment of grand importance. So there it is, then.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Queer as a football bat.
Sean says that I should write, and then he says that when I do it sounds like me.
So which does he want?
So which does he want?
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Blame Lincoln.
I was talking to Ambrose on the phone last night, as he packed to leave for OCS (which he did at 0600 this a.m.), and he stopped in mid sentence to ask me something. "And answer honestly," he added.
"Is there a cotton shortage in the United States? Are the sheep dying of disease?"
I had no response, and so he pointed to possible causes for a textile problem, all stemming from the lack of slave labor around the world (except China, which doesn't reach entirely around the world and so does not count), specifically in the American south. Since there are no longer plantations humming along productively from the Gulf to the Potomac, a shortage of cotton is at hand. But I wanted to know why he was asking me such a question.
"These women," he said. "They aren't wearing anything."
Having spent three of the past ten days in crowded amusement parks, faced by thousands of pounds of obese American vacationers wearing little more than underwear and a smile, this made me laugh. Quite a lot.
"So, basically, Abraham Lincoln is to blame for the degredation of modern society," he finished. "I must call Sammie."
And that was the end of our discussion. Now, I must disabuse the Yankees out there of the notion that no cotton is grown anywhere any more--it sprouts by the acre all across the southern and midwest United States, as well as in South America, Africa, and even parts of Europe. Fine sheep graze on hillsides, giving up their own modesty once a year for the sake of hiking socks and plaid scarves. All across the Small Blue Planet (trademark) are sources of textile goods in all shapes and sizes. Ambraham Lincoln did not, in fact, cause a cotton deficit by emancipating the slaves. The problem is people, actually, and their attachment to good bodily ventilation.
Digression. This is part of my blog where I lose my inspiration, decide that I should have stopped at least a paragraph ago, and then ignore that realization and plow onward to a silly, meaningless, and uninspiring finish. End digression.
Fat people, it has been proven, love to show off their fat. Skinny people love to show off their skinny. Tattoed people love to show off their tatoos. The textile production market aids them in their daily quest to show as much fat, skinny, and tatoo, by providing them with as little material as possible which might obscure the fat, skinny, or tatoo. In the meantime, we save the environment by spending less energy on waching machines and dryers, and kill fewer turtles and penguins by keeping detergent chemicals out of the lakes and streams of Mother Earth (trademark).
Thank you for reading. I'm sorry I don't blog more often, nor finish my thoughts when I do, but I have a busy life and too few brain cells to make this an everyday event. This is the uninspiring finish.
"Is there a cotton shortage in the United States? Are the sheep dying of disease?"
I had no response, and so he pointed to possible causes for a textile problem, all stemming from the lack of slave labor around the world (except China, which doesn't reach entirely around the world and so does not count), specifically in the American south. Since there are no longer plantations humming along productively from the Gulf to the Potomac, a shortage of cotton is at hand. But I wanted to know why he was asking me such a question.
"These women," he said. "They aren't wearing anything."
Having spent three of the past ten days in crowded amusement parks, faced by thousands of pounds of obese American vacationers wearing little more than underwear and a smile, this made me laugh. Quite a lot.
"So, basically, Abraham Lincoln is to blame for the degredation of modern society," he finished. "I must call Sammie."
And that was the end of our discussion. Now, I must disabuse the Yankees out there of the notion that no cotton is grown anywhere any more--it sprouts by the acre all across the southern and midwest United States, as well as in South America, Africa, and even parts of Europe. Fine sheep graze on hillsides, giving up their own modesty once a year for the sake of hiking socks and plaid scarves. All across the Small Blue Planet (trademark) are sources of textile goods in all shapes and sizes. Ambraham Lincoln did not, in fact, cause a cotton deficit by emancipating the slaves. The problem is people, actually, and their attachment to good bodily ventilation.
Digression. This is part of my blog where I lose my inspiration, decide that I should have stopped at least a paragraph ago, and then ignore that realization and plow onward to a silly, meaningless, and uninspiring finish. End digression.
Fat people, it has been proven, love to show off their fat. Skinny people love to show off their skinny. Tattoed people love to show off their tatoos. The textile production market aids them in their daily quest to show as much fat, skinny, and tatoo, by providing them with as little material as possible which might obscure the fat, skinny, or tatoo. In the meantime, we save the environment by spending less energy on waching machines and dryers, and kill fewer turtles and penguins by keeping detergent chemicals out of the lakes and streams of Mother Earth (trademark).
Thank you for reading. I'm sorry I don't blog more often, nor finish my thoughts when I do, but I have a busy life and too few brain cells to make this an everyday event. This is the uninspiring finish.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Humility is like Underwear
...necessary, but indecent when shown.
Sigh. That's what a local church sign informed us as we drove by a little while ago. Somehow, though I suppose the sentiment isn't exactly fallacious, it comes off wrong. Eew.
Sigh. That's what a local church sign informed us as we drove by a little while ago. Somehow, though I suppose the sentiment isn't exactly fallacious, it comes off wrong. Eew.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Wow!
As Sean says.
So, the Romies got back yesterday, and they're taking over campus with the European flair and charm. Not to mention their practically-perfect-in-every-wayness. ;-) Yay for the Junior class being together again! Yay for Flannery, our Senior-class-president-elect!
Now, to business. Some people should really understand that a really important thing for making friends happy, is to be happy oneself.
So, the Romies got back yesterday, and they're taking over campus with the European flair and charm. Not to mention their practically-perfect-in-every-wayness. ;-) Yay for the Junior class being together again! Yay for Flannery, our Senior-class-president-elect!
Now, to business. Some people should really understand that a really important thing for making friends happy, is to be happy oneself.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
A question...
My school semester ends in a bare four weeks, which means that (for better or for worse) I'll soon be blogging again.
The problem? How in the world to regain a readership. My faithful friend and sturdy Washingtonian shelter has moved to the Ranch! My faithful friend and sturdy Pennsylvanian shelter is going to summer camp with the Marines. Who else reads my blog? What will happen?
Gasp.
The problem? How in the world to regain a readership. My faithful friend and sturdy Washingtonian shelter has moved to the Ranch! My faithful friend and sturdy Pennsylvanian shelter is going to summer camp with the Marines. Who else reads my blog? What will happen?
Gasp.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
"Are you a marsupial?"
My brother greeted me with the above question this morning.
Which would be fine if he weren't eighteen years old.
Which would be fine if he weren't eighteen years old.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Marshner Thingie
Sigh. Matthew, I've started working on my thingie for Marshner (yours is due the same day, right?). It's going to be kick-butt fun doing the research, but I fear actually presenting. What are we doing? How is it not unconstitutional to be forced to give a presentation on a topic in front of a professor who knows more about the topic than anyone else probably this side of Vatican City?
Siobahn's comment on Dr. Marshner:
"Um, Dr. Marshner, I have a question about -----."
"Oh. Well, in this book I wrote about that, it says..."
You get the idea. Why does it seem appealing to me to research the General Instruction on the Roman Missal for hours? Knowing that he's going to deep fry me in better information as soon as I open my mouth?
Who is out there reading this, I wonder.
Siobahn's comment on Dr. Marshner:
"Um, Dr. Marshner, I have a question about -----."
"Oh. Well, in this book I wrote about that, it says..."
You get the idea. Why does it seem appealing to me to research the General Instruction on the Roman Missal for hours? Knowing that he's going to deep fry me in better information as soon as I open my mouth?
Who is out there reading this, I wonder.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Random Nonsense?
Uh, how about a confession? I watched a bit of a Family Guy video someone showed me yesterday...and I laughed my head off. Stewie is teaching music, and he's like, 'Okay, Eric, try againg. And remember--the wrong keys are electrified." Too funny.
Don't see that movie.
Incidentally, I have a biblioraphy due for a paper without a topic, title, or thesis. Crumbs.
Don't see that movie.
Incidentally, I have a biblioraphy due for a paper without a topic, title, or thesis. Crumbs.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Something else.
Hmm....now I remember why I did't post anything for weeks and weeks. It was making me sign up for the new google-powered Blogger. And I totally lacked the time, energy, and inclination.
Hmm. Here's your post, Massew. I ruuz you!!
Hmm. Here's your post, Massew. I ruuz you!!
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Dead Blog
Ugh, this is sick.
*echo*
Lordy.
*echo* echo *echo*
Remind me to post something here later, will ya?
*echo*
Lordy.
*echo* echo *echo*
Remind me to post something here later, will ya?
Monday, January 08, 2007
O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved...
From the desire of being extolled ...
From the desire of being honored ...
From the desire of being praised ...
From the desire of being preferred to others...
From the desire of being consulted ...
From the desire of being approved ...
From the fear of being humiliated ...
From the fear of being despised...
From the fear of suffering rebukes ...
From the fear of being calumniated ...
From the fear of being forgotten ...
From the fear of being ridiculed ...
From the fear of being wronged ...
From the fear of being suspected ...
That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I ...
That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease ...
That others may be chosen and I set aside ...
That others may be praised and I unnoticed ...
That others may be preferred to me in everything...
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should. Amen.
From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved...
From the desire of being extolled ...
From the desire of being honored ...
From the desire of being praised ...
From the desire of being preferred to others...
From the desire of being consulted ...
From the desire of being approved ...
From the fear of being humiliated ...
From the fear of being despised...
From the fear of suffering rebukes ...
From the fear of being calumniated ...
From the fear of being forgotten ...
From the fear of being ridiculed ...
From the fear of being wronged ...
From the fear of being suspected ...
That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I ...
That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease ...
That others may be chosen and I set aside ...
That others may be praised and I unnoticed ...
That others may be preferred to me in everything...
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should. Amen.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Feast of Epiphany [celebrated]
I'll pass on that, though, because we celebrated it in my house yesterday--on the feast itself.
I spent several hours with my brother, my laptop, and three guitars the other night. We sat up till all hours searching for tab on the internet, which we proceeded to play with gusto. He's really good, and I stink, so it evened out. I now know the words to the entire chorus of Sweet Home Alabama! Go me.
So, I go back to school Thursday. I have Poetry and Poetics, Shakespeare, Social Teachings of the Church, Theology of Worship and its Music, Modern Philosophy, and Apologetics to look forward to. I have a proctorship at a house dorm, which means time 'away from campus' will be somewhat more plentiful, and I think I have a job as well. Yay!
My job here in town wound down (again) last night, with a staff dinner at the Italian place we like. Fun stuff--I was made to demonstrate the way I count on my fingers, soundly made fun of, and that was that. The trick is, of course, that I know more about the entire student body than almost anyone else in that place. They'd better be nice to me, or the mailers will never get sent out. ;-) I won't come back in the summer unless they're going to treat me right.
I spent several hours with my brother, my laptop, and three guitars the other night. We sat up till all hours searching for tab on the internet, which we proceeded to play with gusto. He's really good, and I stink, so it evened out. I now know the words to the entire chorus of Sweet Home Alabama! Go me.
So, I go back to school Thursday. I have Poetry and Poetics, Shakespeare, Social Teachings of the Church, Theology of Worship and its Music, Modern Philosophy, and Apologetics to look forward to. I have a proctorship at a house dorm, which means time 'away from campus' will be somewhat more plentiful, and I think I have a job as well. Yay!
My job here in town wound down (again) last night, with a staff dinner at the Italian place we like. Fun stuff--I was made to demonstrate the way I count on my fingers, soundly made fun of, and that was that. The trick is, of course, that I know more about the entire student body than almost anyone else in that place. They'd better be nice to me, or the mailers will never get sent out. ;-) I won't come back in the summer unless they're going to treat me right.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Electronic Guilt
I think my subconscious was in on the game when I made my blog my homepage. Considering the fact that I get online about 40 times a day, or at least open internet explorer 40 times a day, that means I get to see this page 40 times. In all it's unchanging, outdated glory.
Every morning, I get up and see that I haven't posted in a week. Blah.
Every morning, I get up and see that I haven't posted in a week. Blah.
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