Taking the Day Off

It's my birthday. Finales can wait a day or two. I am having too much fun to close the book on this blog with any gravitas tonight.

Finale

Tomorrow will be my 33rd birthday and my last day posting on this blog. I will write more about my reasons then. Until then, you readers have my prayers and thanks.

An E-Mail From Our Missionary in Honduras

Emily Byers is one of my friends, and she has given up her opportunity to leave Honduras and return to the safety of our shores for the sake of continuing God's work with the people to whom she was sent. My friends often make me proud, but that kind of boldness is inspirational. She writes:

Dear Friends,

I realize that the current political instability in Honduras may not seem like a big deal, and maybe to the rest of the world, it isn't a big deal - but what happens over this weekend will determine the fate of this small country, and more specifically, the fate of the Church in this country, and the fate of our mission here in Comayagua.

Over the past ten months, I've put down roots here, which is why when I was faced this week with the choice of whether to stay or to go (back to the States), I chose to stay. I'm writing to ask all of you to please, please pray for the mission here in Comayagua, especially over the next couple of days.

I cannot emphasize enough the great need for prayer in this difficult situation. If Hugo Chavez makes good on his threats to the Honduran government, his actions in the coming days (and the subsequent reactions of the Honduran people) could be disastrous. If you can commit to being a prayer warrior for us until this conflict is resolved, please leave a comment on my latest blog post with your prayers, sacrifices and words of encouragement. Whether it's a single prayer, a Mass or a Rosary - we would be so grateful. (As a community, we will be praying a novena to Our Lady Help of Christians - posted on our Community Blog - starting tomorrow.) If I am able, I will share your comments with the rest of the missionaries. It helps to know that we’re not in this alone!

If you still don't have any idea what's been happening down here, I've tried to summarize the events of the past week on my blog. Please stay close in prayer - I will post updates when I can!

In Jesus and Mary,
Emily Byers

My Chat With a Presidential Candidate

Back on April 4, I was able to spend sometime online chatting with independent presidential candidate Average Joe Schriner. The chat was cut short when Joe needed to tend to family duties, but I think you will still get a good feel for this Catholic family man promoting a consistent life ethic. Here is the text from our chat.

6:30 PM me: 1.) Can you explain what the Catholic faith means to you and the role it plays in your life

6:32 PM Joe: The precepts of the Catholic faith drive everything I do. It is the essence of my personal life, my family life and woven throughout my campaign platform.

6:34 PM me: Were you always consciously Catholic or did you have a "come to jesus" moment where the faith became real to you

6:39 PM Joe: While I grew up Catholic, it's been an ongoing conversion process where the faith has become incrementally more and more real to me -- as I've been exposed to more and more. For instance back in the 1980s, I spent a good deal of time volunteering at an inner city church in Cleveland alongside a priest who demonstrated the essence of the gospel message when it came to helping the poor. His example moved me further along the conversion continuum.

6:40 PM me: Loving Christ in the poor is foundational to your spiritual life, then?

6:44 PM Joe: Yes... It seems like more than half the gospel message is all about helping the poor and others on the margins of society. (The Catholic Church teaches "Preferential Option for the Poor.") Our family intentionally moved to a hardscrabble area of Cleveland after Campaign 2004 to live side-by-side with the poor in order to help make a difference. We take in the homeless at our place and will do the same at the White House (better use of the Lincoln Bedroom) as an example to the nation.

6:45 PM me: Previously, you have written about your love for the town of Blufton. What type of town is Blufton. How different is it from the part of Cleveland you moved to? What values do the people hold in common?

6:54 PM Joe: We used to live in Bluffton, Ohio (pop. 3,587). It was quite an idlyic small town. However, our campaign platform is to ask some people to forgoe the comfort and saftey of suburbia and these small towns, roll up their sleeves and move into the urban areas to help. That is, instead of just throwing money and more police at the cornucopia of current urban problems, there needs to be a systemic change that can only come from those more well off moving in here and helping orchestrate the change.

6:58 PM me: With your involvement with social justice causes to help the poor, you must be familiar with the way abortion disproportionately affects the poor. Generally, in regards to the right to life of the child and the dignity of the mother, how does abortion rate as a social justice issue? What also is the relationship between poverty and abortion?

7:10 PM Joe: Abortion is, indeed, often a social justice issue. And poverty is often a precipitating factor in abortion. We see it all the time down here. Now... If I am a more well-off suburbanite who chooses the wide screen TV, the new Honda with all the options, central air-conditioning... while my brothers and sisters are daily trying to dodge needles, bullets and hunger in these urban areas -- and some of thosse people opt for abortions because of the poverty... Who is more spiritually culpable? The people trapped in trans-generational, dead-end poverty loops just trying to survive down here? Or the more privileged, who have chosen to, basically, hoard the resources God has given them, while, at times, just throwing a pittance (percentage wise) at the poor? And this includes many well-off "Pro-life" people.

7:12 PM me: Do you favor a reversal of roe v. Wade, which would turn the legality of abortion back to the states? Do you support a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution which would outlaw abortion nationwide? Is changing the law necessary? Is it enough?

7:22 PM Joe: We are living in a modern day Holocaust that is virtually unparalleled. And I would whole-heartedly push for a Human Life Amendment (or however you'd word it) to outlaw abortion nationwide. As the Catholic Church states: abortion is an intrinsic evil that should always be opposed -- no matter what the circumstances. In fact (and you couldn't legislate this, but...) I told the Columbus Dispatch that as president I'd ask people to consider no longer celebrating their birthdays, but instead celebrating their "conception day" (give or take a few days). In all seriousness.

7:24 PM me: Are you okay with the Church celebrating both Christmas and the feast of the Annunciation on March 25?

7:27 PM Joe: This hasn't been proposed to me up until now. But, indeed, this would be a great way to make the point.

7:32 PM me: What in your mind is the state of American Catholicism when you have many trying to baptize the republican platform against abortion with their support of torture, preemptive strike and other military adventurism, and strong tendencies among conservatives to be blind to the poor, to favor big business, and to be hostile to the immigrant. While on the other half of the Church, the same manipulation is being done with the Church's teachings on preferential option for the poor to allow the Democrats to push an agenda of radical abortion rights, assaults on traditional marriage, contraception dispensed by schools, and a general secular morality. Are American Catholics too politicized by the GOP and the Dems? Are they authentically Catholic?

7:33 PM What is Catholic identity in politics?
or what should it be?

7:38 PM Joe: Those who are Catholic, I believe, should hold to Church teaching across the board. This, obviously, doesn't fit with either major Party Platform at this time. In a broad brush sense, the Church would be in line with a Consistent Life Ethic. That is, it would be opposed to abortion, euthanasia, poverty, pollution, unjustified war... and anything else that ends life prematurely. It, too, would be opposed to contraception and gay marriage

McNair Had Heart

Peter Finney of The Times-Picayune remembers the special journey of Steve "Air" McNair. The message board is filling up with finger pointers, and I will never stand in the way of a rebuke of adultery. But when speaking of the recently deceased, it is proper to celebrate the good and at the very least drop the edge of harshness in the critiques. The man in his totality has been judged by God, and we pray for mercy for all of us. The man in his public persona and revealed private life will be judged in some probing biography or by some talking heads on ESPN, a fate most of us will gratefully be spared of after our passings.

McNair made me smile, a testimony that could Michael Jackson fans all over the world have been sounding since his death even in light of much greater scandal. There is an absurdity in mourning celebrities you never met, and I wish the media was paying more attention to Honduras, Iran, and the serial killer in South Carolina. But if you do not appreciate the heart and gracefulness of an Air McNair pushing his Titans down the football field, or of a Michael Jackson moonwalking and spinning and singing from the stage, someone ought to confront your philistine disposition.

I have mourned the loss of loved ones, and I am not nearly mourning now. But the news of anyone dying young, dying in the wrong place at the wrong time without opportunity to tie up loose ends, it should bother us, especially when we remember how we appreciated the person's gift from a distance.

The Truth from Honduras

Emily Byers explains how the world is not understanding the crisis in Honduras in context thanks to Obama and CNN.

Prayers for Honduras

Emily from Witnessing Hope is down there with the Missioners for another year at least, and two other Parousians are going to visit her this week.

Free Abita Beer and Sound Catholic Teaching

Theology on Tap returns to the Abita Brewery in Abita Springs tonight at 6:30. I hope to see you there.

Northshore Theology on Tap will take place in Summer 2009 at the Abita Brewery in Abita Springs on the following dates:

June 25 - Discernment: God's GPS for Your Life with Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes

July 9 - Ethics: Moral Virtue for a Time Such as This with Dr. Jim Jacobs

July 16 -Theology of the Cross with Danny Burns

July 23 -Overwhelmed by a Relentless God with Char Vance

The Divorce Will Be Televised

Maggie Gallagher takes on our callous nature towards marriage and family life in light of the Jon and Kate crisis.

Victory for LSU!!!!!!

LSU wins their sixth College World Series in convincing fashion, branding the Texas Longhorns with an 11-4 victory.

Is this the best LSU baseball team ever? I think so.

Chad Jones and Jared Mitchell add CWS victory to BCS championship.

Mainieri makes the right moves.

Americans Dominate in Futbol!

Shockwaves are felt around Europe as the U.S. upsets #1 Spain in soccer 2-0, ending their 35 game winning streak. Soccer is a difficult game for many American sports fans to appreciate even though its pace is actually quicker than baseball or golf. I occasionally would watch international soccer matches when I was doing summer school courses at LSU before my freshman year of high school. It was not until Brazil's 2002 capture of the World Cup that I really found the wonder of "the beautiful game." This is a bigger sports story than most people realize, even if ESPN is doing all it can to promote the game. Hopefully it will further legitimize the game in the states and inspire more of our best young athletes to compete in the world's most beloved sport.

My Day in New Orleans

This isn't a book report. I am off to loaf around the French Quarter and wind up at the Rock'n'Bowl to listen to some live music later tonight. I sure hope there is a tv on the LSU game tonight. Don't you wish you could have such fun?

McCain and the Neocons Are Dead Wrong on Iran

So says Reagan speechwriter and conservative columnist Peggy Noonan with a disdain for the "Bomb Iran" singer John McCain's warmongering and chest thumping in her article Whose Side Are We On? You Have to Ask?

Stifling and corrupt religious autocracy has seen its international standing diminished, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is among other things a Holocaust denier, has in effect been rebuked by half his country, and through free speech, that most painful way to lose your reputation, which has broken out on the streets. He can no longer claim to speak for his people. The rising tide of the young and educated seems uninterested in reflexively hating the West and deriving their meaning from that hatred.

To refuse to see all this as progress, or potential progress, is perverse to the point of wicked. To insist the American president, in the first days of the rebellion, insert the American government into the drama was shortsighted and mischievous. The ayatollahs were only too eager to demonize the demonstrators as mindless lackeys of the Great Satan Cowboy Uncle Sam, or whatever they call us this week. John McCain and others went quite crazy insisting President Obama declare whose side America was on, as if the world doesn't know whose side America is on. "In the cause of freedom, America cannot be neutral," said Rep. Mike Pence. Who says it's neutral?

This was Aggressive Political Solipsism at work: Always exploit events to show you love freedom more than the other guy, always make someone else's delicate drama your excuse for a thumping curtain speech.

Our support for Iranian freedom needs to be with our prayerful observation and measured commentary. They are on the verge of winning their freedom. Let's avoid the Americanist posturing that can pull defeat out of the jaws of victory.

Melancon for Senate - Maybe

Congressman Charlie Melancon, a blue dog Democrat who opposes abortion and gay marriage but supports stem cell research, may oppose incumbent Republican David Vitter for Louisiana's U.S. Senate seat. Most people remember Vitter's phone number being attached to the D.C. Madam and his alleged involvement with New Orleans prostitutes. But Catholics should be troubled by the warmongering xenophobe's hard right stands, as well as his reliable votes against abortion being measured against his veep-posturing endorsement of the pro-abortion Rudy Giuliani in 2007. How does a Catholic vote in this race?

Well, for starters, the Catholic votes in 2010. There is no need to pledge loyalties right now. But I think there is a case to consider Melancon. Between the advances in non-embryonic stem cell research and embryonic stem cells being linked to cancer, much of the embryonic stem cell argument is dying and Melancon's support may become a non-factor in the 2010 race. Indeed, knowing that this will be a tough race for any Democrat being linked to Obama in every commercial run in Louisiana, pro-life Democrats ought turn the heat up on Melancon to reverse course and oppose embryonic stem cell research, thus taking away from the religious right pawns of the GOP the big disqualification of Melancon that would show up on voter guides distributed in churches.

Melancon could then run as the pro-Louisiana, pro-life, pro-working class blue dog Democrat against he scandal ridden Vitter. This would not guarantee him a win but it would cut into Vitter's base of social conservatives, a base more than ready to desert him if there were a viable alternative. It is clear that Melancon cannot win his race by being the Obama candidate. He must run right, and making an appeal to the family values crowd (my crowd as a Democrat who voted for a split ticket in the 2008 national elections -Republicans John McCain and John Kennedy and Democrat Don Cazayoux) makes too much sense.

Melancon could be Senator for life if he will embrace Louisiana values. The question is whether his Democrat donors could stomach a strong right campaign from him on issues of public morality.

"Pro-Life" Push Poller Excommunicates Pro-Life Blogger from the Pro-Life Movement

“Oh”, she said, “I see you are not really prolife.”

“What?!” I said, “What on earth did I just say that could possibly lead you to that conclusion?” But there was only silence on the other end. She had hung up on me.

Read more here because what happened to Daniel Nichols is more anecdotal proof that the pro-life movement has become to dumb to discern the defense of the unborn with shilling for the Republican party.

What a Comeback!

Mikie Mahtook's eleventh inning RBI single lifts the LSU Tigers to a Game One victory over the Texas Longhorns in the College World Series. This felt like a game LSU should have lost, but the Tigers clawed back and hung on until Texas surrendered the lead in the eleventh. For those of you who did not see it, Paul at Stranger in a Strange Land shares the story of Mikie Mahtook's family, how his uncles stepped in when his father, a former LSU football player, died when Mikie was four.

99 Balloons

I praise you, so wonderfully you made me; wonderful are your works! My very self you knew;
my bones were not hidden from you, When I was being made in secret, fashioned as in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes foresaw my actions; in your book all are written down; my days were shaped, before one came to be.
How precious to me are your designs, O God; how vast the sum of them!

This is heartbreaking and beautiful. Hat tip to Objets D'artagnan.

The Type of Therapy Society Needs

Enjoy a bit of Bob Newhart telling us the two words we need to hear.

Don't Call me a Conservative

Bill Kauffman advocates Front Porch American values to the shagrin of left and right while insisting in The American Conservative that the C-word is a bad word.

Is The American Conservative a contrail in the sky of a dying America or the bright harbinger of revival—of a better, more humane Little America? I do not say this better America would be a more conservative America because for half a century, “conservative” has been a synonym of—a slave to—militarism, profligacy, the invasion of other nations, contempt for personal liberties, and an ignorance of and hostility toward provincial America that is Philip Rothian in its scope. The conservative movement, like the empire whose adjunct and cheerleader it is, is a daisy chain of epicene dissemblers and vampiric chickenhawks who feast on the carrion of our Republic. The c-word is quite simply beyond reclamation. The anarchist founder of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Frank Chodorov, had the right idea, even if it did contradict his pacifism: “Anyone who calls me a conservative gets a punch in the nose.” If we have to play Name that Tendency I’d opt for Little American, front-porch republican, localist, decentralist, libertarian, or, to borrow Robert Frost’s term, plain old Insubordinate American—anything but C! (With a nod to Shel Silverstein.)

In one article, Kauffman slams the D's and R's while celebrating Wendell Berry and Townes Van Zandt. He may be the new writer I wish I could be.

A Syrinx

Thanks to everybody who remembered me in prayers during my absence from blogging. If you see me grimacing or looking agitated, it is probaby due to the herniated disc in my lower back acting up. But the big health concern for me has not been in my low ack but my neck, where doctors have found something called a syrinx. Inside my spine there is a cyst formed by spinal fluid. It has nearly tripled in size in the last year and a half but is still relatively small. A syrinx occurs in 8 out of every 100,000. I have another mri in 3 months. So I can look forward to a life of constantly checking up on it and staying on my knees in light of it.

A Prayer Request and A Quick Rundown on the News

A lot of my readers know that I was in a car wreck shortly before my parents' death in December 2007. My brother and I both had back and neck injuries, but his gave way to treatment. Mine have not. I had my first visit with a pain management doctor last Monday, and he reviewed the MRI from my neck in January 2008. The doctor caught hold of a possible cause for my ongoing problems, but another MRI and a visit to the neurosurgeon will give me some confirmation. Surgery is a possibility. My school plans may change depending on the diagnosis. Regardless of what the final diagnosis and course of action will be with this, I am asking for your prayers.

At some level, the pain from this neck injury and a herniated disc in my lower back and fatigue from walking around downtown Baton Rouge throughout the day as I carry out my work duties are keeping me down in my free time. I am not much of a blogger right now, but I am not ready to retire "Astonished Yet at Home!" I will post when I have free time and feel better.

Since I am not feeling my best, here is my brief take on everything:

Pope - yes. He's German and Catholic and grandfatherly and scholarly. The faithful cannot help but love this man.

Popeyes - another yes. I had a spicy 2 piece combo with mashed potatoes and gravy yesterday and it was delicious.

Pope (JPII) - yes. Christopher West - no, not right now. The Nightline piece did a lot of dirty tricks to make him look like someone the faithful should run away from. His own work should have rightly made the faithful do that years ago. He would do well to quietly reread John Paul II's text and heed the criticism of serious theologians and philosophers who have a record of loyalty to the Church.

Barack Obama - ontologically good, also not the Anti-Christ. Finding opportunities for dialogue and identifying common ground with him when we can does not mean giving honorary law degrees to a man who advocates ignoring natural law and human rights.

Chicago Cubs - Losers with a capital L. They have dropped seven in a row since I renounced them. Do not underestimate my baseball mojo.

Houston Astros - Also do not bank your season on my often misunderstood mojo.

Flannery O'Connor - Wicked cool. I have re-read "A Temple of the Holy Ghost", "A Good Man is Hard to Find", and several of her essays in the last few weeks. I cannot think of a writer so evidently aware of both the revelation of grace and man's dark side than Miss O'Connor.

That's pretty much everything. Please pray for me again, and check back for the sporadic update.

The Parousians Summer Reading Group

If anyone is in the Baton Rouge, Lafayette, or Gainesville area, the Parousians will be going through smaller works from Flannery O'Connor, G.K. Chesterton, Fulton Sheen, Alasdair MacIntyre, Edith Stein, Walker Percy, John Henry Newman, and Karol Wojtyla matched up with corresponding articles from Saint Thomas Aquinas in the Summa as we explore sacramental vision. Send me an e-mail for more info.

No More Reverse Mojo for the Houston Astros

Baseball is a game of skill for sure, but luck matters. I have come close to cheating fate for my favorite baseball team, because I am historically the best walking breathing piece of apologetics for bad luck. You see, knowing that I was unlucky and that the Chicago Cubs were cursed, I have many times in midsummer pretended to "abandon" the Houston Astros for the Chicago Cubs. This always provokes the Astros to a late season rally where they contend for the playoffs and on more than one occasion earn a spot.

To what extremes have I gone to convince fate that I really have attached myself to the sinking ship of the Chicago Cubs in order to help the Astros. I have worn a Cubs cap. I have convinced unknowing Cubs fans I was one of them and that this really would be their year. I have made announcements like this on my blog and on fb of the greatness of the Cubs and the futility of the Astros. I even deleted this post on my blog where I explained the reverse mojo in my annual renunciation of the Cubs just to try and make it stick this time. I know, it sounds sick, but it has worked well in years past.

But it ends forever now.

My friends who are experts in Catholic moral teaching insist it is never morally legitimate to do something evil in order to bring about a greater good. The ends never justify the means. The appearance of rooting for the Cubs and against the Astros endangers my soul for all eternity. It also may lead others to hell who imitate me.

And also, with news of me finishing my undergraduate career after 13 long unlucky years, I have to conclude my bad luck is at an end, and I am now a renewed son of destiny. Things will work out for my good, and the curse on the New Orleans Saints and the Houston Astros will be reversed. Yes, you heard it here first. The Astros will win the World Series and the Saints will win the Super Bowl in the next calendar year.

Be assured, my readers, this post is not a joke.

Me . . . A College Graduate?!?!

I finished my last course to earn a Bachelor of General Studies from LSU on the Friday before last. Because I did this by correspondence, there was a rule in place that insists I sit out a semester before I actually get my diploma. My BGS is composed of minors in English, political science, and history, where I have more than 30 hours in each, and could have theoretically fought for multiple BA's if I could have weathered through foreign languages by correspondence and meet individual residency requirements in each. That just wasn't working, and I could not afford to take a year off to work on my undergrad degree in the classroom.

So after 13 years, I will finally finish my undergraduate career. Hopefully I will be in Lafayette in the fall working on a master's at the University of Louisiana. Geaux Ragin' Cajuns!

Being old and wise, let me impart this wisdom to the kids entering college. Take your required courses. Exercise and get some sleep. Join whatever religion is serving the free meal that day, but if you have to formally renounce your Catholic faith for the shepherd's pie, go to confession before receive communion. Try to lay off the video games and go to class. And under no circumstances should you write for the school newspaper, participate in college debate, or get sucked into a political campaign. The last one is most important.

But Father, I'm Not Gay!

When we were in Florida a couple of weeks ago, we went to confession at a rural parish. The foreign priest came up and visited us in the parking lot on his way into the Church, thinking we were seminarians and getting all of our names wrong when we introduced ourselves. He came across as a very serene priest, perhaps even holy in the few moments we spoke to him. He rushed into hear confessions where a line had already awkwardly formed.

We got into this line but an old lady cut in front of us, prompting us to move and more securely keep our place in line. We do our best not to, but from our new positions we can hear the old lady's confessions. I am next in line, and while my confession is not a major one, I still don't want anyone to hear it.

So I go face to face instead of kneeling behind the screen to be further from the door. I put my face down and whisper my confession. This holy priest begin giving the most tender and orthodox counsel, none of which had anything to do with my confession. He begins to advise me on how to view my homosexuality as a cross and turn it over to Jesus.

I caught myself just before I could correct him in a loud voice that would certainly carry, "But Father, I'm Not Gay!" I just sat through it, received the valid absolution, left the Church, and busted out laughing.

No all you smartasses out there, this priest does not read souls.

It did serve as a reminder though of my brothers and sisters who confess their struggle with homosexuality, how similar we all are, gay and straight alike, in our need for mercy. The marginalization of any person Jesus seeks to redeem because of a perceived grotesqueness of their sins compared to our own is simply incompatible with our faith.

Jesus chose to identify with all sinners, not in affirmation of their sinful acts, but to redeem the good in the person that is obscured by sin. He chooses to save because He loves. For Him to love evil would be evil, and the Protestant notion of the total depravity of man can be dismissed by recognizing its incompatibility with God being all holy and all loving. Catholics recognize the goodness of all men and women created in the image of God. This does not change the reality of the alienation from God (and our neighbor) caused by sin. Rather, it causes us to avoid seeing people as either all okay but incomprehensible as the relativist might or dividing into camps of redeemed dung heaps dressed in white and the heathen masses of naked dung heaps (don't blame me for being a potty mouth when I use Luther's language).

So then we agree the Catholic loves the homosexual, the homeless heroin addict, the homocidal maniac, and all other comers, would-be comers, and should-be comers to the font of Divine Mercy because they are children of God, created in his image, onotologically good, and sin and its effects are things we all need to be redeemed from. We agree that no one should be treated as human debris.

Right?