November 2010
1 post
The Hungry Dudes: Reblog Contest: Win a White... →
thehungrydudes:
So here’s what happened. My wife Angela loves candles and I bought her a rare White Castle candle for her birthday. I had to visit 3 White Castles in the Detroit area just to find it.
The candle smells like a burger. The outside is ceramic in the likeness of a White Castle hamburger box.
Turns…
October 2010
3 posts
More thoughts on Glee's Faith
Fin ate a week old cheese sandwich that had been taken into a locker room. If you can get past this disturbing thought, the beauty of him eating his Grilled Cheeus is wonderful. He discovers that God doesn’t work the way he thought, that the Big Questions are big for a reason, but he didn’t throw away the sandwich. It was a sandwich, and the purpose of a sandwich is to be eaten, to...
Glee's Faith
Glad to see a diverse sampling of religiosity displayed. The childlike, God of the gaps faith of Finn, the cultural faith of Rachel, the depth of Puck and Mercedes, the rational atheist in Kurt, and the broken atheist in Coach Sylvester.
Glad that they didn’t skewer any of them except the extremely facile faith of Finn, and that there were no conversions to anything. I think theism and...
Detroit 187 (there's a lot of country between the...
It’s an okay show. Not remarkable, not terrible. I like that it tries to captures the feel of Detroit. I like the soundtrack, though it was better in the pilot. What I don’t like? The influence of Hollywood forcing California on everything.
1. 187 is not the homicide code in Michigan. I guess it’s become synonymous with homicide, so if we’re expecting it to be a story...
September 2010
2 posts
Things I'm thankful for...
Apples. Beautiful fruits with a wonderful crunch, enough acid not to be cloyingly sweet, but sweet nonetheless. Wonderful size, shape, edible skin. Apples are the perfect fruit.
That dinger in my car that tells me I left my lights on. Without it, I’d have to jump my car at least weekly. I know; I did this in high school when I drove a car that didn’t have that dinger.
Wool socks....
Mosques and Qur'an burnings and Eucharist defiling
Just some thoughts on all this ecumenical drama:
1. It is within the rights of the Cordoba house to build on the property that they’ve been approved for. The furor didn’t flair up until a year+ after they got permission. I perceive this as the rest of the country being knee-jerk patriotic and yes, anti-muslim.
2. It is with the rights of Pastor Jones to burn the Qur’an. It may...
August 2010
4 posts
Religion in two Americas →
A good read that emphasizes the two aspects of the debate concerning the Islamic center near Ground Zero and many other religious issues.
“There’s an America where it doesn’t matter what language you speak, what god you worship, or how deep your New World roots run. An America where allegiance to the Constitution trumps ethnic differences, language barriers and religious divides.
...
Fractured thoughts on the Assumption.
Humans are body and spirit; divorcing the two is denying part of the human experience. If I understand correctly, this is also one of the gnostic ideas rejected by orthodox Christianity, though it seems to have resurfaced in some modern Protestant churches.
The Assumption is an old idea, only recently pronounced an infallible doctrine, is an old idea. The idea, at least in my understanding, is...
I love it when Catholics...
…forget which pew they were in on their way back from communion. I really do find this adorable and endearing.
Anger
Angry at “safe” christianity. Too sterile. Angry at christian art made for the purpose of making christian art, rather than art made out of joy or exaltation of the human spirit.
Angry at advertising. Just trying to convince us that our life isn’t complete if we don’t have the right whitening product for our teeth, or if we don’t have the right car.
Can’t talk someone...
July 2010
5 posts
"God doesn't see this island."
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I love Lost. I think it’s a brilliant show, and it had some wonderful religious and spiritual moments. My favorite Lost character is Ben Linus. He lies, he probably hs more blood on his hands than any other Lost character, and he possibly only cares about himself and Alex. But he’s fascinating.
In the...
Dress code
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Immodest or revealing clothing is never acceptable. This includes, for women, clothing that bares midriffs or cleavage; dresses, skirts, or pants with a hemline above the knee; and sleeveless tops. This includes, for men, shorts, sweats, lowriding pants, and tank tops.
As I’ve mentioned, I go to two churches...
Canine Communion →
I appreciate the sentiment, but this is really just not appropriate (but quite funny).
Dos cruces
I’ve been thinking about both crosses.
As might be expected by an awkward, self-loathing Catholic, I haven’t picked a church. Maybe I need more than just one can provide. I like both pretty well, and alternate between the two. Both churches have large crucifixes prominently displayed.
One church has a wooden crucifix, with a dark, rough wood forming the cross, and a lighter, brighter...
Love
“I spent some time kind looking back at some of my journals, and I came across this passage that was like from sixth grade or something, and I found this passage where I had written something which didn’t seem to make any sense like it didn’t have anything to do with what I’d been writing about and like most of the stuff I write kinda dies in childbirth, like never quite makes it all the way...
June 2010
2 posts
Dark night for the soul
Faith has been hard for me lately. Not that it’s ever easy; it’s a struggle day to day, but it’s been worse for the past couple of months. I haven’t been able to find the quiet and stillness that sustains my faith. Prayer has been hard. Even just getting myself to church every week has been hard (and I did miss a week).
Somehow, going to the candlelit mass helps. The...
I can breathe again
Classes are over, papers are submitted, research is progressing, field work is done for now, and Lost has been mainlined in its entirety. It’s now time to resume my normal reading and relaxing in my downtime.
Yes, I mainlined Lost in about a month. I love the show and some of the characters are really great. I liked the ending, and I’m sure I’ll write about it later. Since...
May 2010
3 posts
Post-flurry lull
I was looking forward to writing after I got my projects done and after the family to-do was over, and now that I can breathe, I have no motivation to write. Maybe tomorrow.
daveholmes:
The kids are ripping into sugar...
The Hounds of Heaven
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/379/Return-To-The-Scene-Of-The-Crime
Dan Savage on the Catholic Church, belief, faith, and his mother.
Starts at about 38 minute mark.
I understand where he’s at. Not entirely, of course; my mother is still alive, and it wasn’t death that drove me back. I’m still not entirely sure what drove me back. But I understand...
April 2010
13 posts
Musing for later
“between Calvary and Eden lies Hell”
Five myths about the Catholic sexual abuse scandal →
A little bit of sanity in all of this. I’m not trying to defend the abuse; I’m trying to remind people to maybe look at it with some objectivity, despite the highly emotionally charged nature of the whole thing.
Perhaps coming from the sort of experience I have has exposed me to more people who take a large measure of schadenfreude in seeing the Catholic church hit in any way.
The Importance of being Earnest
One of the things I’ve been trying to do lately, at least since I dropped the atheism label, probably starting before that, is to live earnestly and passionately, without cynicism.
I was dubbed a cynic a long time ago. I took pride in the label then, but looking back at it, it just strikes me as precocious pride. I thought that being cynical was where realistic people should be, and somehow...
Pope, Catholics, Penance →
The media does have a history of taking Benny’s words out of context, so it may have been another one of those horribly academic, not at all useful for communicating, statements. But this still pissed me off a bit. How about, since he wants it to be so hierarchical, we start from the top and work our way down, and he reins in his Cardinals so they stop saying stupid shit like the pedophilia...
Things I like
In honor of Don’t be a dick day (aka Positive day), I’m compiling a not comprehensive list of things that bring me some amount of happiness.
Faygo Red Pop
The transition between the 3rd and 4th movements of Beethoven’s 5th symphony
Fuzzy sweaters
Bumblebees
Non-poisonous snakes
The Brothers Karamazov
Midnight Mass
Zingermans
Mythbusters
Tetris
The Detroit Red Wings,...
Why I stay: A parable from a progressive Catholic →
At some point I’ll write my own, but this is pretty good; can’t let the house get overrun by the, um, uncles.
Christos Anesti!
Have a wonderful and blessed Easter!
(The end of) Atheism part 9
“Credo, but I don’t know in what.” -Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
It’s taken me a year of admitted theism to be able to make some positive statement of what I believe.
I believe in God. I have faith in God. But what is God? God is a woefully insufficient word for the nebulous concept of something beyond, behind, above, underneath all that we see and touch. I am working...
Atheism part 8
Despite my desperate prayer and the possible answer, I didn’t become a practicing Catholic again. I didn’t even attend mass for a few months after that. Not sure why.
At some point, though, I decided I should check out the student parish. I don’t know what motivated me to do this; I liked the Dominican parish, and it was closer to home, but I still checked out the student...
Atheism part 7
Skipping back a year or so before I granted intellectual assent:
Continuing with my preoccupation with and sporadic participation in the Catholic church, when I moved to California, I went to mass a few times. I have always been cognizant of when feast days and other important church calendar days are, so one year, I declared “It’s Palm Sunday. Ima go get a palm frond” and walked out the...
Yet another name change
An Ardent Heart.
Nicked from The Brothers Karamazov. My least favorite of the brothers (and this is counting Smerdyakov, too), professes his ecstasy in poetry and prose, both his own and that of others. In it is his nascent understanding of the sacredness of the world and himself, and yet a deep understanding of the baseness of his nature.
Above all, he displays a love for life before the...
March 2010
22 posts
Atheism part 6
I’ve struggled with depression since I was about 13 or so. It got really bad when I was 14 or so, and stayed bad until I was about 19. It’s been up and down since then, and been mostly up in the past couple of years. I’m learning to deal with it, and A- has been wonderful in sticking by me, and occasionally kicking my ass, through the past seven years.
I have wondered if the...
Atheism part 5
College wasn’t just full of atheism. During my first two years, I went to perhaps a dozen different types of services, including Catholic masses. I didn’t care for the student parish, but there was another nearby that I liked quite a bit. I went to these services with friends, boyfriends, alone, and once, for a class.
Yes, I wandered, and yes, I didn’t believe in God at the...
Atheism part 4
Having grown up in small, homogenous towns, one of the most pressing urges I had when considering colleges was getting out. I needed to get to a larger town with a more diverse population. I wanted a big school with lots of opportunities in case I changed my mind (which I did at least twice). I ended up going to the University of Michigan, and Ann Arbor became my home for four years. I still...
Atheism part 3
It took several months before I was able to admit I wasn’t sure if I believed in God. I think my first journal entry (I wrote hundreds of pages from about age 11-22) mentioning my disbelief was when I was 14 or so, and I know the idea had been kicking around in my head for several months at that time. When I wrote the words “Does God exist?” it was both terrifying and exhilarating. I was...
Jesus invites Glenn Beck to a "Progressive" Dinner... →
“Glenn was enraged. He knew now beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus was not only a socialist but a Marxist. Glenn had his Foxwater security agents evict Jesus from the dinner party.”
Atheism part 2
I am not resentful for my lack of formal religious instruction. Ultimately, it probably served me better than the sort of instruction I would’ve received in the place that I lived. Had I been given facile answers as absolute answers, I might’ve rebelled harder or harbored more resentment. But as it was, I made it to atheism without any real damage from Catholicism.
Somewhere around...
Atheism part 1
I was once assigned the penance of figuring out who helped me get to where I am now. That penance has stuck with me and turned into something of a spiritual practice I engage in at least once a week. I’ve tried to tell my story at various times to various people, but words often fail when the person is in the same room. Typing and screaming it to the internet is a slower and strangely more...
Credo, but I don't know in what.
I’ve really gotta stop composing posts on the tumblr page. Too easy to navigate away or have firefox unexpectedly stop working.
The name of this blog was a hasty choice. I fell back on an old standby because I couldn’t think of anything cleverer, but my posts don’t feel like they’re just trying to bat away an ever-present nihilism, and I am trying to become someone for...
and wee
No relation to the poem except it’s a glorious spring day.
I think I have a proposal, and I think I’m okay for tomorrow’s exam. There’s a pcr happily amplifying, and we have a new place to live. Yay.
Musing about atheism and science and intelligence and faith. Will write more later.
Heart and head and ... something
Went to the late mass this past Sunday. Walked there and back, 30 minutes each way. It was the first good experience I’ve had at mass in a few months. I hit that point where the calm just happened, and I was feeling relaxed and at peace and loving. Either 40 minutes of sitting quietly in the dark, or the consecration, or both did it.
Part of it was the presider. Perhaps I shouldn’t...
The Colbert Report Chaplain and Colbert →
“If he wanted me to focus on the poor and the powerless, those rejected by society, don’t you think he would have put something on this to inspire empathy?”
"Ma vie fitte avec les saisons..."
I love the seasons with all the passion that Ivan Karamazov loves the sticky young buds on the trees. The seasons are the story of life, played out perpetually throughout the year. The seasons give structure to my life.
Life thrives in the summer. The grass grows desperately, making up for all the time lost in winter, knowing that fall comes shortly. Mosquitoes plague the summer, but avoiding...
Spiritual but not religious — Not so fast! -... →
“Religion without spirituality becomes a dry list of dogmatic statements divorced from the life of the spirit. This is what Jesus warned against. Spirituality without religion can become a self-centered complacency divorced from the wisdom of a community.”
Real Live Preacher being pretty good
http://reallivepreacher.com/node/1623
“And there is certainly no getting to the bottom of the God question. That might seem obvious, but I’ve been dealing with religious people all of my life. And though most would say that God is beyond all understanding, they act as though they’ve got God pretty well figured out.
Well enough to tell you - for a fact - that God exists.
Well enough to...
Notes
God as relationship
Trust and Faith and Hope and Belief
Knowledge v. Experience
