SUMMER VACATION

We're off for vacation soon, and I'll be gone from tomorrow until July 5th. I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe holiday weekend! We're heading up to Fort Robinson in the northwest corner of Nebraska. I'll try to bring back pics of buffalo, western skies, the bluffs where Red Cloud's tribe stayed, and the spot where Oglala Sioux Chief Crazy Horse was killed.

We were there for our first anniversary (when we lived a few hours away and had NO money to our name) and loved it. The kids should too. We'll take them around the scenery, be staying in a two family cabin, see a rodeo, buffalo, and take a hayrack ride and eat buffalo stew. We'll be spending our time with our friends from Minneapolis and their two boys as well. Everyone has plans for a busy 3-4 days, but I'm simply looking for some long sought after solitude and quiet…a respite of a few hours each day would be nice. I'm taking my camera, a good book, a pen and my journal. There is such a sense of freedom and I hope that I'm opened up even more to God when out there when I write. It's a wonderful place; spiritual in a way. Second only to South Dakota's Badlands on my places to go for such purposes. (Having never been to Rome, etc.)

Others visit more exotic places on their vacations…I prefer the wide-open skies of the Great Plains myself. Refreshes my soul, much as last year's visit to Minnesota and eastern South Dakota did. Last year: Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Corn Palace; this year: Crazy Horse & Pine Ridge.

It was also at Ft. Rob in 1994 that I picked up a book called Black Elk Speaks. It remains to this day one of my favorite books. You can read more about the man born "in the Moon of the Popping Trees" [see below] who witnessed the Battle of Little Big Horn as well as the death of his cousin Crazy Horse, supported the Spirit Dance movement that ended with the sad slaughter of his fellow people at Wounded Knee by a senseless US military, and of his conversion to Catholicism here.

THE TRUE PEACE
The first peace, which is the most important,
is that which comes within the souls of people
when they realize their relationship,
their oneness, with the universe and all its powers,
and when they realize that at the center
of the universe dwells Wakan-Taka (the Great Spirit),
and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.
This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this.
The second peace is that which is made between two individuals,
and the third is that which is made between two nations.
But above all you should understand that there can never
be peace between nations until there is known that true peace,
which, as I have often said, is within the souls of men.

~ Black Elk Native American spiritual leader

NAME-CALLING REDUX

Several weeks ago I posted an article about Barbara Nicolosi's (Church of the Masses) interview with a reporter from the NY Times. Well, the article finally came out last Sunday, but before it was published she had one more conversation with the reporter.

Why can't reporters just report facts, and stop with the editorializing already? Sheesh.

James: I hope you'll be okay with this. In my article, I referred to you as "a Catholic activist."

Barb: Forgive me, but what the heck is a Catholic activist?

James: (laughing nervously) Well, you know, somebody who is really into organizing Catholic things.

Barb: But, I don't organize Catholic things. I am the executive director of an interdenominational non-profit --

James: Yeah. Yeah...I know...but I had to call you something.

Barb: You could have called me the executive director of an interdenominational non-profit organization.

James: Yeah. Well.....[cough]

I dunno...I think calling me an "activist" makes me sound much more nasty and unbending and menacing, don't you? I think it makes me sound like someone with whom "mainstream Americans" would probably not want to play foosball or something. But, I do think it might be a nice monniker to use on Jesus some day at the gates of heaven:

Me (to Jesus standing at the Gates of Heaven): I think you have to let me in.

(Jesus raises the Divine-resurrected body eyebrow)

Me: I'm one of your activists. The NY Times said so.

Jesus: Cool. Wanna play foosball?

TOP 10 LIST

Michael Dubruiel has a list of the Top 10 Catholic Bestsellers on Amazon.com for June 25th posted.

I'm taking #4 with me on my vacation this week, and own 5, 6, 9, and 10. I've read #7.

So many books...so little time.

TWO MASTERS OF LITERATURE

I have stumbled across a neat little blog called "The Inklings". The Inklings were a gathering of friends -- all of them British, male, and Christian, most of them teachers at or otherwise affiliated with Oxford University, many of them creative writers and lovers of imaginative literature -- who met usually on Thursday evenings in C.S. Lewis's and J.R.R. Tolkien's college rooms in Oxford during the 1930s and 1940s for readings and criticism of their own work, and for general conversation.

Over the weekend I purchased a book called Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship and am excited to read it. I've enjoyed very much learning of Tolkien and all of his writings at this middle-stage of my life, and am about to do the same with Lewis. All I had read of CSL to this point were The Screwtape Letters (which I loved), but never anything else, including Narnia. This will be changing as I've picked up Narnia, and am going to also read Mere Christianity, A Grief Observed, Surprised by Joy, The Four Loves, The Great Divorce, The Problem of Pain, and The Weight of Glory.

The following paragraph is from The Weight of Glory, which is a collection of nine of Lewis' sermons. I've boldfaced the final lines of the paragraph as they were highlighted to us during the "Called & Gifted" conference I attended this weekend on finding our spiritual gifts. If we were to truly live these last lines, imagine the affect it would have upon the world.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously--no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinners--no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat, the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

The line, "…our charity must be real and costly love…" also catches my attention, as this weekend's readings and homily by our assistant pastor dealt with sacrifice. Yesterday's Gospel from Matthew 10:37-42 is the one in which Jesus says:

"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it,and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

We are called to sacrifice all…to live our lives in a way that would not make sense if not for the existence of God. And I can think of no better example than what Jesus is saying above. It had always been a passage that I struggled with, and still do at times.

Tolkien's selection below seems dreary by contrast, until you read the final line. The main overriding theme of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is that of Divine Providence, which he alludes to here:

Tolkien to his son Christopher (extract)
10 April 1944

I sometimes feel appalled at the thought of the sum total of human misery all over the world at the present moment: the millions parted, fretting, wasting in unprofitable days - quite apart from torture, pain, death, bereavement, injustice. If anguish were visible, almost the whole of this benighted planet would be enveloped in a dense dark vapor, shrouded from the amazed vision of the heavens! And the products of it all will be mainly evil - historically considered. But the historic version is, of course, not the only one. All things and all deeds have a value in themselves, apart from their "causes" and "effects." No man can estimate what is really happening sub specie aeternitatis. All we do know, and that to a large extent by direct experience, is that evil labors with vast power and perpetual success - in vain: preparing always the soil for unexpected good to sprout in.

- from The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

REMEMBER MANNERS?

Deroy Murdock writes of something that is quickly becoming a relic of a bygone age it seems: manners.

He writes:

The ongoing collapse of courtesy is no surprise in a nation with so many people who are as self-absorbed as black holes. Consider this T-shirt I've spotted: "It's all about me deal with it."

Murdock then goes on to list twelve simple rules for good manners. To which I would add one right off the top of my head: shutting your cell phone off during church services. I don't know how many times I've heard a cell phones intrusive ringing during Mass. Honestly, unless it's God calling, I don't need to take a call for that hour. Besides, I figure He knows how to reach me in the interim.

"IT'S IN THE HOLE!"

The American File Institute released its list of the Top 100 Quotes from U.S. Films today. One of my all-time favorite films, "Casablanca", led the way with six lines, while "Gone With The Wind" and "The Wizard of Oz" each had three. It's a quality list, with some pleasant surprises that indicates they're not all stuffed shirts over at AFI. Be sure to check it out.

Two of my favorites came in at #54 and #92 respectively:

54. "There's no crying in baseball!", "A League of Their Own," 1992.

92. "Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac ... It's in the hole! It's in the hole! It's in the hole!", "Caddyshack," 1980.

PUTTING THINGS IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Jonah Goldberg, one of my favorite writers today, discusses in the Washington Examiner the inability of people today to relate to historical context, and why that makes it easier for demagogues to throw around the Nazi-herring as effectively as they do. People today simply have not read nor studied historical events enough to discern the difference.

The Nazis, Soviets and Cambodian Communists murdered millions of entirely — objectively — innocent men, women and children. The Nazis performed medical experiments on children and gassed whole families. Under Pol Pot, merely showing grief for a murdered husband, wife, parent or child was punishable by summary execution. The Soviet gulag earns the top "honor" of having killed the most people — some 15-20 million — most of them having no idea why their own country found it necessary to terrorize and kill them.

Meanwhile, the 500 or so men in Guantanamo may be terrorized, but they know why they are there. They declared a terrorist war against the United States and the West. They openly embrace the slaughter of women and children. They write tracts defending the beheading of "infidels." They defy the rules of war set down by man and their own god. That may not justify some of the alleged abuses committed by the United States in the war on terror, but it justifies many things America's critics call abuses aren't.And it shouldn't tax the intellects of even the Dick Durbins of the world that, say, plucking a child from the arms of his executed mother and sentencing him to a slow death at a labor camp is different than plucking a terrorist from the mountains of Tora Bora and sentencing him to a holding facility where he gets three square meals, a Quran and, during interrogation sessions, a heavy blast of rap music and little air conditioning.

So why is Dick Durbin even partly right? Because of the willful collective historical and moral ignorance of vast swaths of the public and the opinion leaders who influence them. If Durbin read the allegations about depriving prisoners of food or forcing them to defecate on themselves, huge numbers of Americans would think of Nazis (though probably not the Gulag or Pol Pot because such connections require a level of historical literacy too few possess today). And it is undoubtedly true that in the circles frequented by the likes of Durbin — where Howard Dean is a statesman and Michael Moore deserves the Nobel prize for … something — people would automatically think "Nazi."

This is because "Nazi" has become so synonymous with "bad" in our political culture where all bad things must be Nazi-like, particularly if these bad things were (allegedly) committed by the United States. Durbin could have compared the alleged abuses to the behavior of the French in Algeria or even the police in Chicago 20 years ago and been far closer to the truth. But that just doesn't have the oomph he's looking for and it would have had too many people scratching their heads.

"SMALL MURDERS"

The Pope has a new book being released.

While all the material was previously published in other forms, the importance the Pope attaches to it was underscored by the fact that the compilation was being presented later on Tuesday by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, his vicar for Rome, and Marcello Pera, speaker of the Italian Senate.

It was also being published less than two weeks after Italy's Roman Catholic Church won a significant victory in a referendum that blocked attempts to dismantle Italy's strict law on assisted fertility and embryo research.

In one section of the book, the Pope asks rhetorically why the Church should not accept that abortion is legal in many countries.

"Why don't we resign ourselves to the fact that we lost that battle and dedicate our energies instead to projects where we can find greater social consensus?" he writes.

Because this, he says, would be a superficial and hypocritical solution.

"Recognizing the sacred nature of human life and its inviolability without any exceptions is not a small problem or something that can be considered part of the pluralism of opinions in modern society," he writes.

"There is no such thing as 'small murders'. Respect for every single life is an essential condition for anything worthy of being called social life."

SAD SONGS

...say so much, right? Barbara Nicolosi gets a tip of the cap for directing me to one journalist's list of the Top 25 saddest songs ever written.

I’ve listened to or have heard of several of these, and it’s a good start. There are several not there, of course, but this is enough. (I would have added several more by Pink Floyd or Roger Waters, and included my all-time saddy “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin, although his is at least a warning of what can happen if we don’t take time for our children.)

But the point Barbara makes is a good one:

Music is very important. The songs in your heart can give you either inner hope and joy, or inner meaninglessness and cynicism. I always marvel how parents can just shrug off what their kids are listening to.

This is so true. Once I began listening to music in my early teens, my whole demeanor changed. I went from a pretty happy-go-lucky kid, to one obsessed with sadness and darkness. At one point my mom was worried that I was going to commit suicide, not because I spoke about it, but because the music I listened to was so damned depressing. I finally recognized this in my later years of college, and since then have eliminated a good portion of my music collection that was so dark. At one time I wanted to leave those recordings for my kids (imagine that…ack!), but now wouldn’t dream of foisting that rubbish upon them. Instead my book collection will be their heirloom.

It’s also why I have a difficult time listening to country music, or country music of the early 90s before it became a musical genre like all the others, obsessed with money and sex. Sure, there’s still a song now and then about how my-wife-left-me-and-took-the-dog-and-my-pickup-died variety, but they are few and far between. I related to country a lot in the early 90s when a relationship of four years went down the tubes, as I felt like those songs were “talking to me”, but if I listen to them now they seem tired and pointless. It’s the same with the blues (my favorite genre). I’m married, a father, a prayerful man…I don’t HAVE the blues. Well, at least not like THAT.

My nine-year-old son wants his own boombox or CD-player for his room. But that means he’ll need music to play there. I don’t see or hear anything produced by the music industry today that I think he’s ready to hear yet. I guess that’s why last month I bought five older Bill Cosby recordings from the 1960s, the ones that I grew up listening to when I was his age, playing them on an old turntable (remember those?). I’d rather he listen to the exploits of Ol' Weird Harold, Crying Charlie, and Fat Albert than “Comfortably Numb”.

FOR YOUR BOOKSHELF

The Anchoress received a new book today, one that looks handy to have.

WORDS MEAN THINGS

As I continue to argue: words do mean things. Once we've lost our language, we've lost everything. This is but one example. Whether you're a Democrat, Republican or otherwise doesn't matter. Comparing the horrible atrocities of regimes in the past with Gitmo is utter nonsense, and a total hyperbolic disconnect from reality. Senator Dick Durbin is an idiot of the highest order and a bombthrower extraordinaire. This is an example of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there is none.

Last Tuesday, Senator Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, quoted a report of U.S. "atrocities" at Guantanamo and then added:

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings."

Er, well, your average low-wattage senator might. But I wouldn't. The "atrocities" he enumerated -- "Not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room" -- are not characteristic of the Nazis, the Soviets or Pol Pot, and, at the end, the body count in Gitmo was a lot lower. That's to say, it was zero, which would have been counted a poor day's work in Auschwitz or Siberia or the killing fields of Cambodia.

Just for the record, some 15 million to 30 million Soviets died in the gulag; some 6 million Jews died in the Nazi camps; some 2 million Cambodians -- one third of the population -- died in the killing fields. Nobody's died in Gitmo, not even from having Christina Aguilera played to them excessively loudly. The comparison is deranged, and deeply insulting not just to the U.S. military but to the millions of relatives of those dead Russians, Jews and Cambodians, who, unlike Durbin, know what real atrocities are. Had Durbin said, "Why, these atrocities are so terrible you would almost believe it was an account of the activities of my distinguished colleague Robert C. Byrd's fellow Klansmen," that would have been a little closer to the ballpark but still way out.

One measure of a civilized society is that words mean something: "Soviet" and "Nazi" and "Pol Pot" cannot equate to Guantanamo unless you've become utterly unmoored from reality. Spot the odd one out: 1) mass starvation; 2) gas chambers; 3) mountains of skulls; 4) lousy infidel pop music turned up to full volume. One of these is not the same as the others, and Durbin doesn't have the excuse that he's some airhead celeb or an Ivy League professor. He's the second-ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Don't they have an insanity clause?

THE VOCATION OF PORN?

Daddy? What do you do for a living?

As small mom-on-pop sites turn into full-time mom-and-pop operations, the porn webmaster community is dealing with something new: family life.

In a first for the industry, webmasters met Monday for a bit of "therapy" at the annual Cybernet Expo porn trade show and spilled their guts about the strains of juggling porn and the PTA.

In general, webmasters said they keep outsiders in the dark along with family members, especially little kids. Richard Buss of porn affiliate site [deleted] keeps his home office in Phoenix locked tight and has no plans to ever tell his preschool-age daughter what he does for a living.

"I don't want her to know, whether she's 21 or 25," he said. "I think it's the proper way to do things."

"I don't tell, not because I'm ashamed of it. I don't tell to protect my daughter and my livelihood," said "Lori Z." who runs [deleted], a resource site for porn webmasters. She also has a preschool-age child she eventually plans to tell about her job, and is active at her local school, where she keeps her work life secret.

PRAY

...for the Torres family. Amy at Open Book has details. Please read.

COMFORTABLY NUMB

I was out of it (literally) most of the day yesterday as I had a temporary crown put on one tooth, and some enamel repair done on another. It took five hours for the novocaine to wear off, and I spent most of yesterday in a blissful fog. Not much different than other days when you think about it. (HA!) I did stumble across this email in my inbox however, and wanted to post it today. Sound advice for us all...

From Creeds to Love and Live By, by Christian Larson, Edited by SandPiper Studios; Blue Moutain Press

• Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
• To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet.
• To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.
• To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.
• To think only of the best, to work only for the best, and expect only the best.
• To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
• To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the great achievements of the future.
• To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.
• To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize othes.
• To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

THE VOCATION OF FATHERHOOD

Father's Day is approaching, and as Vincent Wheeler writes, it is long past time for fathers to reclaim the model established for us by St. Joseph.

If fathers would invest as much time and effort in their children’s spiritual welfare as in their physical, material and intellectual development, they would then unlock the real treasures of fatherhood. There is no greater earthly joy for a father than witnessing his child’s discovery of God’s love; than joining with his child in experiencing the only lifestyle that leads to true peace and happiness; than knowing deep in his heart that he has done everything in his power to protect his child’s soul from the ways of the world and prepare his child’s soul for the endless promises of heaven. If there was only one possible success in life afforded to each father, it is exactly this which his whole being should strive for.

The correlation between a weakening, spiritually passive fatherhood and the functional obsolescence of the family is far from superficial. When trust is eroded by absenteeism, wisdom by worldliness, and sacrifice by selfishness, the very roots of the family become exposed and are soon washed away. The shifting foundation of the family is in desperate need of spiritual reinforcement. Fatherhood is the footing on which to build; faith, the cornerstone; and God, Himself, the builder.

FREEDOM = DISCRIMINATION

The European Parliament called on EU States to recognize gay 'marriages' on June 8th. Buried in that vote was this disturbing quote:

Another paragraph in the (Moreas) report indicates that the European Parliament believes that freedom of religion leads to 'discrimination' and homophobia in the field of education.

The EU adopted a report written by an British socialist named Claude Moreas which goes as far as to ask that same-sex 'marriages' be recognized in the host country, even where same-sex unions or same-sex marriages are not legally recognized. Apparently the sovereign will of those countries is to be ignored just as religion is. It’s quite a stretch to equate a freedom of religion with discrimination, but apparently they are doing so.

A MOVIE FOR KIDS WHO DREAM

Interesting review concerning Shark Boy and Lava Girl on National Review Online. I may have to reconsider passing this movie off so easily. But it was previewed during Star Wars Episode III, right AFTER the stunning preview for The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe so ANYTHING was a letdown after that.

The story follows the adventures of ten-year-old Max, a fairly ordinary boy who enjoys his dreams and dreads reality, for in the latter realm he is the target of school bullies led by the despicable Linus. Max also worries about his parents’ marital problems. He escapes into his dreams, and keeps a “dream book” in which he documents his reveries so that he can remember them.

Of the two main villains in the film, Linus is a typical child bully, and the other is a public-school teacher (though he is a villain only in the dream). A significant part of the story deals with the premise that the public school Max attends is trying to kill his dreams. In the dream world, Linus is called Minus, and he represents all that is evil, barren, and stifling. The school teacher is represented by Mr. Electricity, who tries to keep children from dreaming.

Significantly, in the main reality the bully Linus steals Max’s dream book, thereby threatening to steal Max’s dreams, just as the school is doing. The film emphasizes the notion that dreaming is important because making our dreams reality is what makes the world a better place. The dream planet is called Drool, a combination of words dream and school, and Max must find a way to make these two worlds coexist.

Among his imaginary playmates are Shark Boy (a human-shark mix who was raised by great white sharks) and Lava Girl (who can shoot fire and lava rocks). It turns out that these individuals are not dreams at all but are real, as are the villains. Shark Boy and Lava Girl turn out really to be composed of water and light, respectively.

This is significant because the first of these is a biblical symbol of the Holy Spirit, and the second a biblical name for Jesus Christ. In addition, Lava Girl is, of course, made of rock, another name by which Jesus Christ is known. Also, fire is a traditional symbol of manifestations of the Holy Spirit.

The film is no simple allegory, however: both Shark Boy and Lava Girl, when they reside in Max’s dreams, have flaws. But once Max knows them for what they really are, they become real and are true superheroes. It is Max’s faith that allows them to work in the real world.

HEADS IN THE SAND

To further the sacrament of abortion is clearly the mission, no matter what it takes.

A group providing information about the link between abortion and breast cancer were asked to leave an international conference on Breast Cancer in Halifax last week. Ellen Chesal of the group, Positive Options for Women, told LifeSite News.com that their table at the conference was very well received by most of the conference attendees. “We ran out of material and had to go out to run off more,” she said.

On the second day of the conference, however, the group was approached by one conference organizer and accused of misleading women. Chesal said, “A board member from the Breast Cancer Foundation approached us, enraged, and spitting out accusations about us having a hidden agenda and that we were presenting a lie to frightenwomen from having abortions.”

RUNNING ON EMPTY

SpiritDaily.com has been running a series of articles promoting a book by Father Anthony Bus, talking about what is behind some of the problems in the church. One is a lack of adoration, which stems from an abundance of pride and lack of devotions and holiness. I concur with this as I have struggled to keep my pride in check as well, and as a result of this recognize an abundance of pride in others also. I see it in ways I’ve discussed previously where in certain “Catholic” forums, people do not want to be confronted with the concept of “fearing” God, “obeying” his laws, but instead prefer to dwell in the warm fuzziness of peace and love, etc. I don’t dispute peace and love. But to only focus on this is to choose to hone in on only one portion of Christ’s ministry and teachings.

We've also seen that one of the most overlooked aspects of Christ's time on earth was his prayer life. How many times do we read in the Gospels where Jesus went off to pray with His Father? Obviously prayer and even adoration were key in His life. Isn't there a lesson to be learned from this, too? A lack of a prayer life can lead to many temptations, as Fr. Bus notes:

It gets back to the oldest of temptations. Behind many of the Church disturbances, says Father Bus, is pride. There is "egocentricity" among the consecrated. "Too often, hidden beneath the guise of sheep, are wolves that, perhaps unknown to themselves, devour the sheep," he says. "Pride, pomposity, sloth, egocentricity, and arrogance do more harm to the mission of the Church than those in the world who profess to be unbelievers or with honesty show their disdain for the Christ."

The lack of training and spiritual depth have led to another problem, refusal to discuss the devil, which has allowed him to run rampant, including through those seminaries. Satan is not mentioned much from the modern pulpit even though Scripture calls him "prince of this world." And then there is that issue of holiness. It has been shunted aside, as if an embarrassment.

Parishes are now oriented around programs instead of prayer, points out this priest (whose book bears an imprimatur). "Priests are so pressured into sustaining and participating in a multiplicity of programs, meetings, services, committees, and councils that the sacraments and prayer run the risk of being relegated to an afterthought," he warns.

Those programs are man-made. What the Church needs is what God has designed. Father Bus found freedom when he allowed himself to be formed "in the spirituality of the Blessed Virgin Mary."

At our parish of 1200 families, it does seem that we have a program for everything. Asking our already busy priests to go from meeting to meeting "administering" instead of "ministering" is worrisome. My first clue as to how stretched these men were was when I found out that several of them carry a PDA of some sort on them to track all of their appointments!

I’m a member of several committees myself, and have heard discussed that by having so many options for busy families and individuals, we ensure there is something for everybody to participate in. The hope I think is that by getting people involved in something, they will enjoy it and eventually seek out other things in the parish for them to be involved in, which will hopefully bring them around eventually to the spiritual aspects of the Church. You know what I’m talking about. The Big Three: Time, Talent and Treasure. Or if you prefer a more modern spin: Spiritual Resources, Human Resources and Financial Resources. But then people get so busy in the activities of the parish that their spiritual banks get drained and run low. People need time in prayer and contemplation in order to refuel and refill their spiritual tanks which gives them the energy and drive needed to fuel their good works. Adoration is, I believe, one of the most important “programs” a parish can have, as summed up below.

As Father Bus knows, Adoration solves problems that Church councils can not. Why Adoration?

"In the Holy Eucharist, there is a truth that does not deceive," says this priest. "Satan may seduce us, friends may betray us, parents may abandon us, and priests may disappoint us," but Christ does not, writes Father Bus.

A HERMIT'S LIFE

…may not be for everyone, but at times when I am overwhelmed with our busy society, it sure looks appealing to me. I struggle to pray the Divine Office daily, and it is then that I feel the most peace. I regret that I’m not able to do so more faithfully or as often as I’d like (seven times per day). Perhaps is also an escape that lures me to it though; an inability (or unwillingness) to subject my soul to the horrors of the headlines in these times. Just this morning I read of a mother convicted of starving her 18 month old boy slowly to death, and too many others that break my heart anew each day.

Not very "Church Militant" of me though is it? To just run like that off into the wilderness? It is a struggle I would be faced with if I ever came to that crossroad.

Newsweek introduces us to Agnes Long:

Today, Agnes Long is a Roman Catholic hermit. She lives alone in a thickly wooded section of Madeline Island, in northern Wisconsin. Her beloved husband is dead; she hasn't seen her children in years. She wakes before dawn, prays throughout the day, eats small meals, works outside, makes religious paintings, and rises in the middle of the night to pray. Although she sees people when she drives her little truck to the grocery store or to mass, she has no one you might call a friend. And though she answers her phone when it rings, she doesn't often engage in what you would call conversation. "I feel that my whole life has been in preparation for where God has me now," she says, as she slips the old photo back into the pages of her prayer book. "When you go into solitude, you find out who you really are."

Long's life may look radical, but she is following an ancient path. Christianity has a long tradition of hermits, dating back to the third and fourth centuries, when Saint Anthony and thousands like him fled the hardships of the cities for the desolation of the Middle Eastern desert. There they fasted and prayed with the sole intent of getting closer to God. They believed stringent solitude would help them glimpse heaven; the pilgrims who visited them said they looked like angels. These ascetics are known as the Desert Fathers, and there is not a contemplative monk or nun in the world who does not treasure their legacy.

SEARCH YOUR PEELINGS, CUKE

Watch the adventures of Cuke Skywalker, Ham Solo, Chewbroccoli, and Princess Lettuce as they star in Grocery Store Wars.

SAFE AND RARE?

Hardly sounds like it. On May 31st I had a post about this doctor and "clinic." Seems he's back at it. Is this really what those in the pro-choice movement are advocating as imperative to the so-called "right" to have an abortion? Is their ideology so intense as to see that this must stop?

And they shriek about the "back-alley" abortions all the time. Who needs an alley when you have Dr. Tiller around?

Late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller has been accused of botching another abortion as he rushed a woman to a local hospital Wednesday morning. This is the fourth time women from Tiller's Kansas abortion business have been taken to a local hospital, and Killer is accused of killing at least two women.

Protesters outside Tiller's Women's Health Care Services abortion facility Wednesday morning saw the abortion practitioner hurry to the Wesley Medical Center at approximately 8:30 AM, still wearing surgical scrubs from the morning's abortions.

Moments earlier, a green suburban exiting the abortion facility carried a woman in the back seat with her head covered with a jacket. The vehicle drove directly to Wesley's emergency room.

"She was slumped down in the back seat, but I saw her head pop up as soon as the vehicle turned the corner," one of the protesters watching the scene said.

Tiller normally takes patients suffering from abortion complications to Wesley and he left the medical center at about 10:20 AM, without the patient who had been brought there.

THE ORTHODOX "AGENDA"

I have stayed out of the flap over the recent shakeups occurring at America magazine, mostly due to the fact that I’ve never read it and feel it unfair to comment one way or the other on it. They do have a new editorial online in which they talk about their mission at America. They also walk the fine line of trying to balance differing views with accepted church doctrine or “orthodoxy.” They vow to be inclusive.

Within the discipline of the church and the bonds of charity, however, different schools of theology, traditions of spirituality and Catholic social movements should thrive. Faith and Christian freedom should nourish each other.

Theological argument and moral reasoning are integral to the Catholic way of being Christian. Catholics believe that faith and reason are compatible. Christians in other traditions look to us because of our historic respect for intelligence in the service of faith. Unfortunately, there are some in the church who would reduce the faith to pious simplicities and partisan political slogans. But slogans are no substitute for genuine doctrine, and litmus tests function only as polemical weapons, not as instruments of faith-filled inquiry. They are the war cries of a spurious orthodoxy, advanced by religious controversialists, uninterested in Catholicism’s rich complexity.

But then, interestingly, within another article within the issue, Amy at Open Book points this out:

The editorial goes on to say that the magazine will resist the temptation to divide the church into parties, a claim which stumbles a bit as we read another article in the piece on "Orthodoxy Online" - a look at the most popular Catholic websites: (the full text of the article is not, unfortunately, online)

Despite the breadth of material that can be found online, the most popular Catholic Web sites all have a very similar agenda and approach. The top five Catholic sites, as reported by www.catholicrankings.com in December 2004, are Catholic Exchange, EWTN, Catholic Answers, Catholic Online and New Advent. The password for many of these sites is orthodoxy.

I had never considered that “orthodoxy” might have an agenda. And what might that be? To help all people in getting to heaven? To save souls?

So much for inclusiveness. All five of those websites are bookmarked and ones I visit often. Indeed, Catholic Exchange is my homepage on my home PC. Hooray! I’m orthodox! Well, at least according to America.

ON THE WEB

New Oxford Review, one of my favorite Catholic magazines, has a long-overdue new website.

WORDS FAIL ME

Dammit. I'm so furious at this "mother" that words fail me.

A case for people having to get a license to be a parent.

"It's Nicky's time to go," she said in the interview. "When you're born you're destined to go and this was his time."

No, stupid-sad-poor-excuse-for-a-mom-whose-son-deserved-better. It's your time to go. I pity you.

EVERYDAY MIRACLES

Now and then a story comes along that shakes me to my core in a good way. One reads so much of the evil and the negative in this world, that we forget the triumphs and the miracles that are as prominent and around us each and every day. Ryan Belflower, the subject of this article, is an example of just such a miracle. And this comes along when more than ever, I was needing a reminder.

The chant began late in the fourth quarter in the basketball gym at Clovis East High. The students started it first, clapping their hands in unison and pounding the bleachers with their feet. It didn't take long for the parents to pick it up, too. The noise grew until the whole gym seemed to shake. "We want Ryno. We want Ryno."

Pacing the sideline, coach Tim Amundsen felt himself getting goose bumps. Less than 4 minutes remained in the game, and Clovis East was winning comfortably over rival Buchanan High. Now Amundsen had a decision to make.

It was senior night, the last time Ryan Belflower would wear his home uniform. Everyone in the gym knew his story.

Ryan was a special education student who would do anything to fit in and worked tirelessly to make that happen. His basketball career began as a ninth grader passing out balls to the girls' team. Then he hooked on with the boys' team, getting there every morning at 6:30, helping out in drills, running the practice clock and cleaning up afterward.

Now, he sat proudly on the sideline in his own white No. 12 uniform.

The crowd wanted him in the game. Amundsen wanted him in, too. But he was also afraid the slightly built 18-year-old might get hurt.

Amundsen considered all this as he walked toward Ryan and patted him on the shoulder. Off came the warmup jacket, the buzzer blew and Ryan kind of half hopped, half ran onto the court, his left leg trailing slightly at an odd angle.

The noise was deafening as he ran out on the court.

In the stands, Justin Belflower was near tears. A few years earlier, he was a jock at Clovis East, one of those big men on campus. He knew how hard his kid brother had worked for this moment.

"If you had said four years ago he'd play in a varsity basketball game, I'd say stop lying because it will never happen," Justin said.

On this afternoon in February, it did.

And Clovis East would never be the same.

After reading this article, hopefully none of us will be the same either. May we remember to look harder and pay attention to those miracles that surround us each day.

TALKIN' BASEBALL

With the much-anticipated super regionals going on right across the street at Haymarket Park between the hometown Huskers and the U. of Miami, (with the College World Series only a week away just up the road in Omaha) I still find myself sitting here typing wearing my white Red Sox jersey. Why? Because today it's 1918 all over again, baby!!! The Red Sox and Cubs face off today for the first time since the BoSox rolled the Cubbies in the World Series that year. Eighty-seven years is a long time to wait for revenge...

MONDAY, JUNE 13TH UPDATE:
Ok. So the Cubbies took 2 out of 3. Still a long time to wait for revenge, eh? Last night's game was the first in which the Sox looked like last year's team in a long while. Hopefully a change is a-comin'. And Nomar, though injured, received his World Series ring, which had to be bittersweet for him. We miss ya, Nomah.

And the Huskers swept Miami and are heading for their 3rd ever appearance in the College World Series. First up: Arizona State on Friday. In their previous two CWS appearance the Huskers were swept out, going 0 for 2 both years. Look for that to change this year as they have so much more of something missing from those previous teams of 2001 and 2002: Pitching.

MEN AND FAITH

Father's Day is around the corner, and as Rebecca Hagelin writes in her latest column, the gifts we receive on that one day pale in comparison to the gifts we can GIVE on the other 364 days of the year.

We also see religion’s beneficial effect when it comes to fatherhood. Church-going fathers are more involved with their children “They’re more affectionate, and they’re stricter with their kids,” Wilcox says. “We can see, for instance, in youth-related activities that active Evangelical dads spend about 3.5 hours more per week compared to unaffiliated dads.”

Religion, in short, is a powerful influence for good within families, but why? Wilcox cites four reasons: For one thing, it provides key “family-oriented rituals,” such as baptisms, that give fatherhood a religious character. Second, churches host activities that allow men to spend time with their families. Third, churches are often home to social networks that lend support at crucial times. Last, but certainly not least, is spirituality. As Wilcox puts it:

“There’s a sense that God is a part of their lives and gives emotional security to them. This is important because one of the key factors leading to marital problems and problems with parenting is stress. Things like unemployment, especially for men, or a death in the family can lead to poor parenting or poor marriage behaviors for men. If men can offer these problems up to God, God can provide them with a sense of security and direction in terms of how to deal with these things in a productive way.”

IS THAT YOU, MANLY MAN?

I wish somebody sometime would explain to me why we have allowed a handful of individuals in the fashion industry the ability to determine how we view ourselves? As James Taranto in the Best of the Web for June 9th at OpinionJournal.com (scroll down for article) says:

Want to know how to be a manly man? Ask a fashion industry insider. Agence France-Presse did:

Macho man is an endangered species, with today's male more likely to opt for a pink flowered shirt and swingers' clubs than the traditional role as family super-hero, fashion industry insiders say. . . .

"The masculine ideal is being completely modified. All the traditional male values of authority, infallibility, virility and strength are being completely overturned," said Pierre Francois Le Louet, the agency's managing director. . . .

"We are watching the birth of a hybrid man. . . . Why not put on a pink-flowered shirt and try out a partner-swapping club?" asked Le Louet.

Sure, why not--if your idea of a real man is someone named Pierre Francois Le Louet!

Ah, but a little further down in the article, we see the real motivation behind their "findings":

The emergence of this new male beast who wants to look and feel good, and who will also have an impact on the role of women, presages a new potentially lucrative market for the European fashion industry.

"All those labels which have adapted to this freedom of expression are on the up, all those which are too rigid will suffer in the future," Le Louet said, pointing to the growing success of sports and casual wear manufacturers.

"Male beast??...too rigid???" Sheesh.

This is what has always befuddled me about pop culture. It is constantly having to reinvent itself in order to get the next generation to buy in (key word: buy) to what they are peddling. And they aren't even original, but simply rehash the same stuff with a new label and higher price tag about every 20 years or so. Materialism run amok.

BLACK DOG

Sir Winston Churchill, among my favorite historical figures, called it the "black dog." What was it? Dr. Sue Chance explains:

"Black Dog" was Churchill's name for his depression, and as is true with all metaphors, it speaks volumes. The nickname implies both familiarity and an attempt at mastery, because while that dog may sink his fangs into one's person every now and then, he's still, after all, only a dog, and he can be cajoled sometimes and locked up other times.

The man was in lustrous company - Goethe, Schumann, Luther, and Tolstoy to name but a few - all of them great men who suffered from recurrent depression. Who doesn't have at least a passing familiarity with the notion that depression sometimes acts as a spur to those of a certain temperament and native ability? Aware of how low they will sink at times, they propel themselves into activity and achievements the rest of us regard with awe.

And so it is the my own dark canine has decided to revisit me of late. He and I know each other well...too well. At times I thought I've had him tamed, but he still yips and nips at my heels all too often, sometimes throwing himself at my legs which sends me sprawling to the ground. Tonight he hit both knees. But I like how Dr. Chance described it. He is, after all, only a dog. How long he stays this time, I do not know.

The homily below is something I've had saved on my harddrive for so long I've forgotten the source. It has many good points, and I post it hear as much as a reminder for me, as well as an aide to those reading this. I know it's likely that it will be with me for the rest of my days in some fashion or other, but as Dr. Chance states above, I have used it at times for bursts of creativity and energy that surprises even myself. Perhaps the dog's return is a sign of another such burst to come?

We're all going to die. But before that happens, there's some serious healing that has to take place, not in our bodies, but in our spirits. Every one of us has been wounded in all sorts of ways: In part, by the way we were raised — what family isn't a little disfunctional?! In the course of time, we've been wounded by bad people and good people, by bad luck and good luck — by life.

There's another kind of wound we all carry: The self-inflicted wounds of our sins. Some of them have cut deep and done great damage to our spirits. But whatever their specifics, every one of our sins comes down to the same thing: Withholding our love, withholding our gifts when they need to be given. What terrible damage that always does to our spirits: The shrinking, the hardening, the pulling away, the turning in and closing off.

(Where do most depressions and mid-life crises come from? From unhealed and often un-named wounds that we've failed to attend to.)

However we got them, some of the wounds to our spirit are so deep that they can seem beyond healing. But Jesus assures us they're not. And Sunday's Gospel shows us where to begin: By naming our wounds clearly and specifically. That's what the lepers did: "We're rotting away, Lord. Heal us." Do we ever get that clear and that specific? Very rarely. And that's bad news, because unless we name our wound and claim it as our own and nobody else's, we'll never be able to give it to the Lord, wholly and entirely, for His healing. We'll never be quite ready to work with the Lord in that long, slow process by which souls are healed.

God wants every one of us to be whole, healed, and happy. So why waste one more minute just making do? Why not, instead, take time to look deep inside, see the wounds that may have been lurking there since childhood, name them out loud, claim them as our very own, and then give them to the Lord.

No doubt about it, the looking and the naming can make us sad, with all the thoughts of what might have been. And giving the hurts and wounds entirely to God will take a long time. They are so much a part of us, it's hard to let them go! But the payoff is a whole new life. Why not let the Lord help us get started now? Name the wound, claim it, and give it to the Lord.

"Come to me all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will give you rest," says the Lord.

ON MYSTERY

Once more with Barbara today. She started with a nice review of "Cinderella Man", and once her thought processes began churning, she began touching upon one of my favorite subjects: Mystery. It is a topic that confounds and frustrates so many so needlessly.

Frederica Mathewes-Green posts another review of "Cinderella Man" here.

Human beings need stories not to provide answers, but to make us comfortable with our lot in life as limited creatures.

It all goes back to Genesis. The ultimate temptation for every person is the rejection of our dependent creaturehood: "You shall be like gods!" God is the only One for Whom there are no mysteries. For us, on the otherhand, life is a matter of bowing gracefully before the melodies that are too delicate for our hearing, and before immense things that we can only see from one side, and before spiritual realities that our bodies distract us from perceiving, and before very old legacies that are new to us, and before minute complexities that we are too far-sighted to see.

Stories are supposed to acclimate us to the omnipresence of mystery as our lot in life. They are supposed to lead us to the peace that most things are too big for us, and that that is okay. As my friend Karen Hall says, "I may not know the answer, but Somebody does." As C.S. Lewis said, "We read to know we aren't alone." And this is what we get from stories too. That somebody else has encountered a particular mystery. We are all in this together. So, you don't have to jump off a roof.

As writers, we don't share THE answers, because we will never fully sound any reality. We share "what we know to be true" always aware that our experience and information is the tip of the ice berg. We share something true about living with the mystery. The mystery remains.

THOSE WASCALLY CHWISTIANS

Barbara Nicolosi posts an amazing interview exchange between herself and a reporter from the NY Times. Amazing because with each passing week the cluelessness of the American media is exposed more and more. Do these people ever get outside of their own elements? How sad for us all.

Here's a small portion of the interview:

James: So, in the last six months, there have been 37 pairings in the Times of the word "Christian" with words like "scary", "frightening", "theocratic" and "intimidating". My question is, what is it about Christians that makes you so scary?

Barb: (loud, snorting and sneering laughter) Are you kidding me?

James: What?

Barb: I finally get interviewed by the New York Times, and you ask me a question like that?! (more snorting and laughing)

James: (sniffs) Are you laughing because you think it's funny that people find Christians frightening?

Barb: No. I'm laughing because you want me to tell you why you and your friends are scared of Christians -- and I think you should ask your therapist!

Anyway, the interview went on from there. Basically, James was working on a story about how the same conservative Christian think-tanks that were behind the ascendancy of the Religious Right are now trying to take over Hollywood.

Barb: Are they?

James: Aren't they?

Barb: My experience is that the Christian initiatives in Hollywood are all organic - arising out of the industry itself.

James: Yeah, but where is the funding coming from?

Barb: They are all shoe-string underfundeds! Act One's funding comes from all over. Little drops of water from many sources --

James: Are you a Bush voter?

Barb: Whaaaaaaaaaaaaa?

Talk about your paranoid conspiracy theories! But as one comment said on another forum, "don't tell anyone but I think Christians in Hollywood killed JFK. They're also hiding aliens in New Mexico."

THE CHURCH OF 'ME'

Amy has an interesting post with links up concerning splinter groups breaking off from the Catholic Church, yet still referring to themselves as Catholic. But be sure to also read the comments posted below by readers...an interesting discussion is taking place.

A former Des Moines diocese priest, citing the priest abuse scandal and the conservative direction of the Roman Catholic Church, has left the church and become a pastor in one of about 100 splinter Catholic organizations in the United States.

The Rev. Ray McHenry, who served as a parish priest in West Des Moines, Carter Lake and Council Bluffs, has renounced the Roman Catholic Church and joined a small group of disenchanted Catholics who seek more inclusive beliefs and are part of a growing independent Catholic church movement.

McHenry, 52, of Bellevue, Neb., is now a priest in the National Catholic Church of America, a denomination that has no pope, ordains women, marries couples regardless of gender and makes celibacy optional.

The National Catholic Church of America began as a Catholic religious community in 1944 and became a church in 1998. It has fewer than a dozen parishes in eight states and no count of members. It is among more than 100 "expressions of Catholicism" in the United States, some more conservative than the Roman Catholic Church, some more liberal, McHenry said.

THE "BANALIZATION OF THE BODY"

The Holy Father pronounces the obvious, and the press scurries. It is interesting that in the AP version of this story, they left out the "banalisation of the human body" line from his speech.

"Banal" means "trivial, commonplace." What the Holy Father is saying, is that the human body is not meant to be trivial or cheap. This earthly body is an integral aspect of the most astounding creature created by God in the universe: the human being, the embodied spirit or inspirited body who bears the image and likeness of God. When people give themselves to each other sexually, that is a moment of particularly heightened sacramentality, because giving-yourself-in-love is what the Trinity does for all eternity. And for new life to spring from that giving is like having a brilliant ray from Genesis shining through you: "And God said, let there be Child." That's the way it's meant to be. When people "banalize" sex into a mere jumble of opportunity, heat, and itch, and "banalize" their connection with each other as something less than an enduring and cherishing love; and "banalize" new life as something disposable, a new budding child as a kind of undesirable bodily waste, something to be flushed it's a tragedy. So painful. So low. God is calling us to something so much higher, so much more beautiful.

Pope Benedict, in his first clear pronouncement on gay marriages since his election, on Monday condemned same-sex unions as fake and expressions of "anarchic freedom" that threatened the future of the family.

The Pope, who was elected in April, also condemned divorce, artificial birth control, trial marriages and free-style unions, saying all of these practices were dangerous for the family.

"Today's various forms of dissolution of marriage, free unions, trial marriages as well as the pseudo-matrimonies between people of the same sex are instead expressions of anarchic freedom which falsely tries to pass itself off as the true liberation of man," he said.

The Pope, who as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger headed the Vatican's doctrinal department for more than two decades, said "pseudo freedoms" such as gay marriages were based on what he called the "banalisation of the human body" and of man himself.

JUDITH OF NAZARETH?

So what happens next after The DaVinci Code and all of its historical hysterical falsehoods begins to fade? Why, issue a new version of the bible, that's what. A new edition of the Gospels is being released that shows Christ as a women and God as a female. But let not your heart be troubled, in all other aspects, the classic texts of the Gospels "remain unchanged." Whew!

The publisher, LBI Institute, has released this new Bible entitled: "Judith Christ of Nazareth, The Gospels of the Bible, Corrected to Reflect that Christ Was a Woman, Extracted from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John." The book is available in bookstores and online.

"This long-awaited revised text of the Gospels makes the moral message of Christ more accessible to many, and more illuminating to all," says Billie Shakespeare, V.P. for the publisher. "It is empowering. We published this new Bible to acknowledge the rise of women in society."

This new Bible includes: The Parable of the Prodigal Daughter, The Lady's Prayer, and other revised favorite passages.

Just last week I was blasted on an online forum for pointing out just this sort of thing. On a Catholic chat and bulletin board the subject of Wisdom as "she" (the Greek for Wisdom is "Sophia") came up and a link to an article on the subject was posted. I do not deny, nor did I deny, that Wisdom has been referred to as a she for centuries. Indeed, it is referred to as a she several times in both the Old and New Testaments, and I have done so myself. The Book of Wisdom is one of my favorite books in the Bible. What I objected too, however, was the author of the article and those like her who use any mention of a female in Scripture to promote a radical feminist revisionist agenda. This author, Joyce Rupp, and others like her use Sophia as an excuse to promote the idea of an overbearing patriarchal nature to the early Church Fathers, as some sort of sinister plot to reduce the standing of women. They create prayers to Sophia, meditations for Sophia, and tell us how to "get in touch with Sophia." I simply pointed out that a lot of her writings were in this vein. The reaction by some caught me completely off guard. I received replies in the forum that were full of vitriol, but the visceral hateful emails were even more amazing. Obviously, the feminists in the Church are more prevalent than even I had suspected.

But the above article exceeds even my own imagination of how far they'd go. Amazing, and more than a little scary.

ROOTS BURIED ON THE PLAINS

This post is a few days too late, but I only just now got around to getting it posted. Our local columnist, Cindy Lange-Kubick began a blog over at the Lincoln Journal Star, our local newspaper that for the most part is horrible, but they try (sometimes). Cindy is the bright spot amongst them, and her post for Memorial Day was a dandy. I've walked through many a pioneer cemetery while researching my family roots, and it strikes me that in those days you could go to one or two spots, and see an entire branch of a tree all buried close by. Today we all travel far from home, and with divorce and non-traditional families, those days seem long gone. The saddest sights for me are the graves of the wee ones. The infant mortality rate was staggering, and I cannot imagine the sorrow of the plains. My own great-grandparents lost their first eight children before the last four children all survived. My grandfather, at age 93 and taken by Alzheimer's, is the last of that group.

I suppose most of us think of Memorial Day as the bookend of a long weekend and the start of summer, especially if we haven't lost anyone close to our hearts.

I started to appreciate the holiday more in the years since I've worked covering Memorial Day events. If you've never heard a soldier recite "In Flanders Fields" you're missing something. I'm also struck, the older I get, by the rituals of my parents and their peers...the trips to the old cemeteries to remember the long gone generations. One year I went with them to the little Lutheran cemeteries to hear the stories of their grandparents and lost aunts and uncles. I don't know if my generation has the same sense of duty.

Friday afternoon my mother fills the trunk with flowers. Store-bought chrysanthemums and daisies on sturdy plastic stems, made in China.

My father drives. I ride along.

For years I've meant to take this journey.

In his family, my father is the last Lange. My granny and popo died years ago; my Aunt Darlene, his only sister, in 1986. I visit their graves in Lincoln. And we take flowers, and our children, to honor their paternal grand-father, great-aunts and uncles, Jill and Michael, the children of friends who died one snowy morning in 1983 ...But I've never made this trip to the country.

"When I'm gone you'll need to know where to go to put the flowers," my dad always said.

And now I know.

I know to head out of town on Highway 34 and turn right at the Garland corner, to stop first at Zion Lutheran Cemetery. To walk past Koentopf and Hering and Petrie. Past the Neitzel children -- Emma, Albert, Otto, Robert, Karl, August -- remembered together on four sides of fading marble, to the grave of August Matthes, my paternal great-grandfather, who I never met, who my father never met.

He was crushed by a bull in 1919, my father says, standing tall in crab grass and clover.

We feel the headstone with our fingers, trace the words: Jesu Christi des Sohnes Gottes macht uns rein von allen Sunden. Amen. Jesus Christ the son of God, makes us pure from all our sins. Amen.

Birds are singing in the pine trees and the cottonwoods rustle. My mother plants the plastic flowers. We get in the car and drive, passing windmills and chicken coops and bare wood barns leaning in the prairie wind, to the J & B Steakhouse in downtown Garland for a bathroom break. My father buys a bag of Doritos because it isn't polite to flush someone's toilet for nothing.

We eat the chips on a quick tour of town. Look over here, my father says. This was his cousin's bungalow, this an uncle's place, this Grandma Matthes' square gray house, the oversized black roof towering above the siding like a too big hat.

He points across the street where a row of trailers sit. "This used to be all trees. We'd spend all day in there climbing them -- all day."

My father is 64. He says this like he can't quite believe it's true. We turn around and hit gravel, drive past the baseball fields and a herd of sleepy cows to our next stop -- the Germantown Cemetery.

Ground squirrels have taken over and a blue bird perches on the point of the graveyard's high iron fence. We walk. A damp dishrag of sky shakes itself.

We pass a chipped rocking horse over a smooth headstone: "Son Jimmy." We pass Ellen, wife of Hans. Died April 17, 1890. And a baby, "Son of Hans and Ellen," Died September 9, 1890. 4 months, 23 days. We do the math and think about how sad it is, first the mother, then her baby. We stop. Here are graves of my Granny's three bachelor brothers. Walter, who traded in junk metal. Fred, who lost his leg to diabetes. Herman, who hung himself in the shed behind the home place.

They are buried next to their mother, my great-grandmother, my father's plump German grandmother, Ida Matthes. My mother plants the plastic flowers. Four sturdy bouquets that will never fade.

We drive back, past the cows, the ballfield, turn toward the highway. I write down the directions, as I am easily lost. Remember to turn left at Main Street, my father says. "That way you can avoid the downtown traffic." We laugh. My father is a boy on Friday. He remembers trips to Lincoln on the train from his home in Malcolm.

"There was a puddle-jumper that ran back and forth."

He remembers those bachelor uncles and overnights with his grandmother. And on Friday, in those stories, I discover a family I never knew ...

One more stop. This time we head east on 34, take the first left past the Malcolm turn. My father points. "This is where my parents lived." The house is gone. We arrive at St. Paul's Lutheran Cemetery, old and half empty, as if suddenly folks stopped dying.

Two peony bushes hang heavy with blossoms big as softballs and smelling like a hug at my grandmother's bosom. Like home.

Carl and Wilhelmine Lange are buried here. His grandmother died before he was born, my dad says. But, he knew his grandfather well. "He was a great guy. A real gentleman."

"Like popo and your dad," my mom adds.

The sky shakes itself again. We shiver. My mother plants the last plastic flowers.

Granny Lange was religious about Memorial Day, my parents say as we head home. She would load the car with peonies and iris, lilacs too, if they lasted this long, and decorate the graves of her parents, her many brothers, uncles and aunts. When she died, my father said, he promised he would take over the task.

And one day, because I am my father's daughter and because I know the way, I will pack my trunk with daisies and chrysanthemums, made in China, or coffee cans filled with ant-covered peonies and do the same. It will be my duty. And my pleasure.

"YA WANT GRACE WITH THAT?"

Living in the Diocese of Lincoln, the whole concept of clowns at mass, or the holding of a Clown Mass, strike me as so bizarre as to be beyond comprehension. Apparently they are growing more common in some areas of the country. But clowns are not the main focus of this subject, covered by The Curt Jester and Musings of an Ex-Pagan. This is not a parody. Be sure to read the commentaries following the article by both men as they muse on how a Catholic version of a drive-in mass would be.

This Sunday church service will take five minutes and you don’t even have to get out of the car.

The Metropolitan Church of the Quad Cities, 3019 N. Harrison St., Davenport, is sponsoring “Drive-Thru Church” from 10 a.m. to noon Sunday.

“Just pull up in our parking lot,” the Rev. Rich Hendricks suggests.

He promises some humor in the offerings. Congregants, for example, will be dressed like anglers in tune with a fish theme.

“This is a way to try and reach out to people who might not otherwise approach the doors of the church,” he said. “Some people don’t relate to traditional church services at all.”

The Harrison Street location prompted Metropolitan Church to choose Memorial Day weekend for the event, said Loretta Gamble of Davenport.

“People will be busy doing any number of activities but we want to allow folks to have a moment or two, if that’s what they can spare, to think about worship,” she said.

Clowns stationed on Harrison Street will attract cars to the church parking lot located on West 31st Street. Drivers will be greeted by a team of three “anglers” and supplied with the daily scripture and a take-home homily.

Prayer requests will be honored.

Everyone will be given communion, but this will be specially delivered in a tackle box, the minister said, in a clean bait cup.

A station will be set up for an informal church choir, and those interested may exit their vehicles and sing. Participants also will take home a special gift in the form of brightly-colored fish key chains or other accoutrements.

No cost is involved but a free-will offering will be collected with part of the proceeds going to AIDS Project Quad Cities.