Safe Haven

I can't see anything. I misplaced my glasses, which reinforces the point of my first sentence. What a vicious cycle that is! I was tempted to punch Bree the Weather Lady on Newschannel 5, because she interrupted the third and deciding period in the Capitals-Rangers hockey game to tell us about a hailstorm in bloody Illinois (no offense). When they had returned to the game, it was 3-1 Rangers with 2:30 left. Let me emphasize that it was a PLAYOFF hockey game. Tell you what: Unless the storm is on top of my house during the Blues game, I don't want to know. If the storm is truly awful, our TVs won't work anyway. Someone died when the same hailstorm lifted up the metal patio on the roof of a sports bar downtown. It is very sad, BUT WHY ARE YOU OUTSIDE IN A HAILSTORM?!? Anyway, big sports day in town. People might wonder why St. Louis is such a successful sports city. After all, the Cardinals have won 11 World Series titles in baseball, second only to the New York Yankees. Th...

She's right , you know. Women as such have nothing to do with this. Men are searching for the term that fits what they are feeling, what they are describing, and it's not enough. But they sense weakness, indecision, equivocation, compromise. And having been locked in the same cultural epistemic prison as the feminists they despise, they call the problem 'feminization.' But just as 'gender' is a stupid, imprecise word that means to undermine the very words we are trying to define, so are the terms used in this discussion. Does 'male and female' really mean something? Do these terms refer to something real? How many times have you heard, "Maleness or femaleness is a useless cultural construct"? A lot, right? Put it another way: The universal terms we might apply don't refer accurately to this thing or that; all that matters are the particulars. Ockham called; he wants his philosophy back. And when American men express frustration at the thing...

I understand that I am a sci-fi geek. I also understand that I will never be cool. But I also understand that science fiction can function like a modern-day parable, a way to say things that might not get said in the highly contentious atmosphere that is our nation and world today. Actually, TV and movies are uniquely positioned to function like this simply as technologies. How fitting that science fiction would be so well-carried by mediums which were once the stuff of science fiction. Anyway, this clip kind of inspires me today. Great show with thoughtful writing cancelled before its time. [It was on 5 years.--ed.] Still.

I took an exam tonight. Fundamental Theology. Welcome to the Catholic Church! You can learn an entire semester's worth of theology without touching a Bible. [Ha! I knew it!--ed.] Simmer down. There has to be a bridge between the truths of reason and the dogmas of faith. Enter Fundamental Theology. But we're not denying the Bible; we're dealing with the preambles to faith first. Duh. That's what you would do if you weren't a fundie. [Pagan.--ed.] Fideist. [Bread-worshipper.--ed.] Eucharist denier. [Ecclesiolator.--ed.] Schismatic. Anyway, I was thinking about humor. We were discussing absurdity in class not long ago, and our teacher said that two main reactions to absurdity exist: laughter and sadness. Personally, I've had too much of the sadness lately for my taste. I digress. "Humor...it is a difficult concept." "We learn by doing." Oh, dear, a Trek-gression has occurred! I hate it when that happens. What is the difference between good humor...

5 Thoughts For Today 5. Don't have meetings about people who offend you when they're not there. Long ago, this was called "gossip," and it's definitely on the biblical List of Things Not To Do. 4. Don't read theology in a cold house with no shoes on. 3. Don't pray in the dark; you'll lose count. (Let the Protestant understand) 2. I don't understand people who talk in cars with music on, or that change the station in the middle of the song. 1. Death doesn't care what you left unsaid.

Late-Night Haiku Somethingorother Fundie is your name, Need you a real good ‘ism’ Can you say ‘schism’?

A friend recently said, "I'm Protestant; can you live with it?" The only reply I can make is, "Can you?" We spent all our days arguing with fundamentalists who truncated the gospel; the God of grace had shown us more and more of his fullness; what could we do but take it? And yet, what are the Reformers, if not the truncators of the gospel, in the end? As it grew, people found more and more ways to exclude each other, while claiming to "stand for the gospel." In an open and free-wheeling time of ecumenism, it is easy and simple to forget the firm commitments our forefathers made; it was nothing like this creedal minimalism so in fashion today. In fact, it might have seemed terribly Catholic, but for the fact that its movers and shakers claimed an interpretive authority that belonged to the Church. I can't sign on to the faith vs. works dichotomy, because it's not about that. It is about charity as a theological virtue; it is about the anthropo...

Just a clarifying comment, if I may, from a discussion in the comments: One cannot re-unite himself to "pre-Trent Catholicism," because that doesn't exist. The Council of Trent is an ecumenical council of Christ's Church. A child of that Church, then, submits himself to that Council unequivocally as a matter of divine faith. The later Councils (say, Vatican I and Vatican II) may express the deepening understanding of God's People (properly speaking) but the Councils cannot be placed in opposition to one another. An ecumenical council, the fullest and most solemn engagement of the Church's authority, is true as such. The bishops of the Church, united with their head, the successor of Peter, guided by the Holy Spirit, discern God's will for his people. The only proper response to the determinations of the Council is submission, to the pope, to one's bishop, and to the priests united to that bishop.