Posted By Christina M on September 21, 2005

Last night my son learned via email that his Papal account may have been breached, and that he would have to log in with some security information in order to reset it. Unfortunately, he could not remember having either a Paypal account or a Papal one, so was unable to rectify the problem. We’re all a little worried that this might hurt his standing in the Church and affect his ability to stay active in the Lifeteen choir.

I think we need to examine the bigger concerns here, though. I am concerned to think that the Vatican may have become involved in a monetary operation akin to Paypal, and wondering how my son got an account without knowing. Is this something that was distributed secretly to all Catholics without their knowing, by a conspiratorial superpower? I do hope this isn’t a Jesuit plot; I’ve heard about them.

There is also a global security issue here. If Papal accounts have been breached, this seems to be the final nail in the coffin of my confidence in an already declining world of safe monetary transactions. Just two days ago I was informed of the same security issue involving my account at Sumitomo Bank, and a week ago my account at Washington Mutual was threatened. Like my son, I do not even recall having accounts at these banks; perhaps this forgetfulness is a pernicious part of the conspiracy of world financiers. All I know for sure is that this makes me nervous about my pending transaction with the deposed Prince of Nigeria. He needs my bank account number, and soon. Now I don’t even know which account number to give him!

The really frustrating thing is I alreadly have enough on my mind. Between trying to decide which 1.5% mortgage offer to accept and how to break it to the Catholic singles, Christian Singles, and LDS Singles that I’m married, I have enough to deal with.

But the news isn’t all bad. I recently won a large award in a little known contest, and once my penny oil stocks start rising, I’ll be raking in the dough.

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Posted By Christina M on September 20, 2005

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

Is this perfect for a northern Californian, or what? Respect my authority!

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Posted By Christina M on September 15, 2005

You may have noticed I’ve been very slow to post lately, especially the past two weeks. Im in the final stretch of studying for a test for my final credit toward my bachelor’s degree. The test is scheduled for tomorrow, so I’ve been spending more time than usual reading about nutrition and boring my poor, patient family with tidbits about the role of vitamin C in healing and scar tissue, and how the brain can’t burn fat, only carbs.

I’m sure the family will all breathe a sigh of relief after I’ve finished the exam tomorrow. You might have a different reaction, when you remember how verbose I can be.

Just the same, I ask for your prayers. This is a pass-fail course-length exam, and my whole degree rests on it. Thanks, and I’ll be showering you with letters, words, and paragraphs soon!

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Posted By Christina M on September 8, 2005

I don’t enjoy party politics anymore, not since I had a few nasty experiences with it in my early adulthood; yet I cannot help noticing the unified support this person seems to receive from fellow Democrats in condoning both a lack of compassion and a self-righteousness about it.

It seems that Demgurl, who prides herself on being a member of the compassionate party, refused to help a stranded woman and infant in need, because this person had a “W” sticker on her car. Ok, but that’s just one selfish and self-righteous person in a party, right? Wrong. What astounded me was the huge number of replies she got, endorsing her behavior. Some suggested that she went too easy on this woman, that the woman and child deserved harm. Others praised her for her enlightened and compassionate conscience, because she felt a little bad about it. Yes, she refused to help a person in need, and she was essentially called a hero for doing it… and a bigger hero for feeling a little bad about it.

Self-righteousness isn’t a virtue. It most certainly is not heroic. It is simply a lazy and selfish answer to a problem too big for any one individual to solve single-handedly. It says, in essence, “Some people help by rescuing people. Some help by donating food and money. I do my heroic good-deed by pounding my chest about being a superior person.”

I’m not sure how self-righteousness is going to help a single victim either of car troubles or of a hurricane, but it sure makes the cold-hearted Demgurl and her compadres feel better about themselves without the inconvenience of having to make any personal sacrifice or do anything that might actually help the victims.

If I were driving past and I saw Demgurl needing help, even knowing what a cold-hearted person she appears to be, I’d like to think I’d offer her a ride. I’d empty my wallet for her. Most of the people I know would do the same.

I guess that just illustrates the difference between Democrats and Republicans. Thank you, Demgurl, for making the point so clearly.

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Posted By Christina M on September 7, 2005

Write Wing Nut tagged me on this meme, so here goes.

Getting to Know Me…..

7 things I plan to do before I die:

1. Write and publish a book of Rosary meditations.
2. Make the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage.
3. Join the church choir.
4. Get a masters in theology.
5. Clean my house.
6. Learn to treat my husband as well as he treats me.
7. Run for local office.

7 things I can do:

1. Debate.
2. Write.
3. Make an extraordinary soup mostly out of ingredients from the garden.
4. Make a pun.
5. Come up with 101 uses for wallpaper samples.
6. Convince a one-year-old he really wants to take a nap.
7. Gestate, gestate, gestate!

7 things I cannot do:

1. Keep my opinions to myself.
2. Fit into narrow spaces.
3. Run.
4. Find things when I need them. (No wonder St. Anthony and I have gotten to be such good friends!)
5. Sew.
6. Resist Dollar Tree.
7. Lie.

7 things that attract me to the opposite sex:

1. Faith.
2. Sense of honor.
3. Protectiveness.
4. Intelligence.
5. Good parenting skills.
6. Generosity with affection.
7. Charm.

7 things I say most often:

1. It’s been a rough day.
2. Don’t scream.
3. No climbing on the computer!
4. Get down from that bookcase!
5. Get off the table!
6. No, you’re not allowed to play with knives.
7. I love you.

7 celebrity crushes:

I don’t really have any serious celebrity crushes, but here are some I find (or have found) attractive.
1. Mel Gibson, though I’ve thought of him as a hypocrite ever since I found out he doesn’t allow his wife to wear short sleeves, but he’ll bare his butt before the world.
2. Sean Connery. (By the way, my husband sounds a bit like him, when he speaks Welsh.)
3. James Garner.
4. Michael Fox (Ok, this was back in high school, but I’m running out of material here!)
5. Matthew McConaughey. (He, too, reminds me of hubbie.)
6. Tom Cruise (a very former one. Now I just hold enough Christian charity toward him to wish he’d get medicated.)
7. And just for fun, I’ll list my first tv crush, Bill Daily. When I was a preschooler, I liked him so much as Roger Healey on “I Dream of Jeannie” that I named my imaginary friend Daily.

7 people I want to do this:
1. Joel (yes, I already know Lauren Bacall is on the list),
2. Sean,
3. Valerie,
4. Ellyn,
5. Tony,
6. Stacey,
7. Patrick

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Posted By Christina M on September 6, 2005

Whatever it was, I thought it was amusing that I turned out to be Augustine, my patient and charming husband‘s patron, and he didn’t.

You are Augustine! You are a great thinker, but be
careful not to let your past immoderation freak
you out about good times. It’s really ok to
take some pleasure in material things.

Which Saint Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Or maybe it’s just because I’m pregnant, so pleasure in most material things is currently off-limits anyway.

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Posted By Christina M on September 3, 2005

No, it’s nothing dirty. He tagged me for a blog meme. But still… my first tag. I feel so (sniff) honored.

Here’s how it works:
1. Go to musicoutfitters.com.
2. Enter the year you graduated from high school in the search function and get the list of 100 most popular songs of that year.
3. Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you hate and underline your favorite. Do nothing to the ones you don’t remember or don’t care about. Commentary is optional, as is good taste.

And the fun part… tag, you’re it!

• Write Wing Nut
• A Catholic Life
• Rambling GOP Soccer Mom

Here’s my list, for 1985:

1. Careless Whisper, Wham!
2. Like A Virgin, Madonna Uh, like a what?
3. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Wham!
4. I Want To Know What Love Is, Foreigner
5. I Feel For You, Chaka Khan
6. Out Of Touch, Daryl Hall and John Oates
7. Everybody Wants To Rule The World, Tears For Fears
8. Money For Nothing, Dire Straits (So in-your-face.)
9. Crazy For You, Madonna
10. Take On Me, A-Ha
11. Everytime You Go Away, Paul Young (The instrumental, and the use of stereo was phenomenal.)
12. Easy Lover, Phil Collins and Philip Bailey
13. Can’t Fight This Feeling, REO Speedwagon (Easy to sing with.)
14. We Built This City, Starship (I like this one even more now than I did then. I think it was just too sophisticated for teenyboppers.)
15. The Power Of Love, Huey Lewis and The News
16. Don’t You (Forget About Me), Simple Minds
17. Cherish, Kool and The Gang
18. St. Elmo’s Fire (Man In Motion), John Parr (I would have liked it better in smaller quantities, though.)
19. The Heat Is On, Glenn Frey
20. We Are The World, U.S.A. For Africa (I wasn’t sure if there was a way to do a double slashthrough. If you recall, they were raising money for a starving Ethiopia through the virtue of self-righteousness. When they delivered, the dictator confiscated it all, and distributed it among his well-fed cronies.)
21. Shout, Tears For Fears
22. Part-Time Lover, Stevie Wonder (see comment below, for #23.)
23. Saving All My Love For You, Whitney Houston (Ah, the beauty and romance of adultery. Does anything really say “love” like doing someone else’s spouse?)
24. Heaven, Bryan Adams
25. Everything She Wants, Wham!
26. Cool It Now, New Edition
27. Miami Vice Theme, Jan Hammer
28. Lover Boy, Billy Ocean (I don’t remember this one, but I put a slashthrough for any Billy Ocean song on principle. I’m firmly convinced the only reason he ever sold any music was that BMG continually selected him as “featured artist” and slow mailers kept accidentally ordering his stuff.)
29. Lover Girl, Teena Marie
30. You Belong To The City, Glenn Frey
31. Oh Sheila, Ready For The World
32. Rhythm Of The Night, Debarge (I’m gonna give it a 70, Dick. It had a great beat and you could dance to it.)
33. One More Night, Phil Collins
34. Sea Of Love, Honeydrippers
35. A View To A Kill, Duran Duran
36. The Wild Boys, Duran Duran
37. You’re The Inspiration, Chicago (Extra points merely for being a Chicago song.)
38. Neutron Dance, Pointer Sisters
39. We Belong, Pat Benatar
40. Nightshift, Commodores
41. Things Can Only Get Better, Howard Jones
42. All I Need, Jack Wagner
43. Freeway Of Love, Aretha Franklin
44. Never Surrender, Corey Hart
45. Sussudio, Phil Collins (I can’t decide about this one. Maybe I’m just embarrassed about having enjoyed a song so stupid.)
46. Strut, Sheena Easton
47. You Give Good Love, Whitney Houston
48. The Search Is Over, Survivor
49. Missing You, Diana Ross
50. Separate Lives, Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin (Nice angst. Good for singing in the shower, or when really peeved at someone.)
51. Raspberry Beret, Prince and The Revolution (This was the only song of his that I ever liked.)
52. Suddenly, Billy Ocean (Why did BMG like him so much? Was someone taking kickbacks?)
53. The Boys Of Summer, Don Henley
54. One Night In Bangkok, Murray Head
55. If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, Sting (Trite, even then.)
56. Obsession, Animotion
57. We Don’t Need Another Hero, Tina Turner
58. Material Girl, Madonna (Much more honest than “Like a Virgin,” don’t you think?)
59. Better Be Good To Me, Tina Turner
60. Head Over Heels, Tears For Fears
61. Axel F, Harold Faltermeyer (I was never big on techno, but this was a shining example of its kind.)
62. Smooth Operator, Sade
63. In My House, Mary Jane Girls
64. Don’t Lose My Number, Phil Collins
65. All Through The Night, Cyndi Lauper
66. Run To You, Bryan Adams
67. Glory Days, Bruce Springsteen
68. Voices Carry, ‘Til Tuesday
69. Misled, Kool and The Gang
70. Would I Lie To You?, Eurythmics
71. Be Near Me, ABC
72. No More Lonely Nights, Paul McCartney (Joel says it was almost good. I concur.)
73. I Can’t Hold Back, Survivor
74. Summer Of ’69, Bryan Adams
75. Walking On Sunshine, Katrina and The Waves
76. Freedom, Wham!
77. Too Late For Goodbyes, Julian Lennon
78. Valotte, Julian Lennon
79. Some Like It Hot, Power Station
80. Solid, Ashford and Simpson
81. Angel, Madonna
82. I’m On Fire, Bruce Springsteen
83. Method Of Modern Love, Daryl Hall and John Oates
84. Lay Your Hands On Me, Thompson Twins
85. Who’s Holding Donna Now, Debarge
86. Lonely Ol’ Night, John Cougar Mellencamp
87. What About Love, Heart
88. California Girls, David Lee Roth
89. Fresh, Kool and The Gang
90. Do What You Do, Jermaine Jackson
91. Jungle Of Love, The Time
92. Born In The USA, Bruce Springsteen
93. Private Dancer, Tina Turner
94. Who’s Zoomin’ Who, Aretha Franklin
95. Fortress Around Your Heart, Sting
96. Penny Lover, Lionel Richie
97. All She Wants To Do Is Dance, Don Henley
98. Dress You Up, Madonna
99. Sentimental Street, Night Ranger
100. Sugar Walls, Sheena Easton

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Posted By Christina M on August 23, 2005

Yeah, it’s that time of year again. The kids are just around the corner from school, and I’m feeling my age. What I mean is that for one of the first years in ages, I’m not wishing I were homeschooling. Last year I had to do it under duress, with a teen who seethed about it, and ultimately refused to do or learn anything. This year, I’m expecting, while taking care of an extremely loud and hyperactive 1 year old, and I’ve spent the summer breaking up fights. No, I don’t currently miss homeschooling, though I still wish that life were peaceful enough that I could be induced to want to do it again. I must say I loved homeschooling back when we did it.

With that in mind, I would like to take a moment to give credit to some of the really good homeschooling blogs and sites, and credit to those who have stuck with it. I hope that those readers who homeschool will find them helpful or at least inspirational, and I hope that those who do not will at least enjoy the read, and maybe find the words of other parents useful in their own lives.

Barefoot and Pregnant is one of my favorites. This blog is personal, fun, and a pleasure to read. Valerie is a Catholic homeschooler with great resource links, and she sounds like the kind of person I’d want to be neighbors with.

Anne at Our Homeschool has some good news. I can’t help being excited with her, since I haven’t yet had an ultrasound, and am looking forward to it. She also has an extremely beautiful blog… something aesthetically inspiriting about it.

Write Wing Blog is another must-read homeschooler, though it focuses more on issues and newsworthies. WriteWingNut covers a good selection of material with consistent insight and wisdom.

I am sure I’ve missed some great ones, but I do know I’ve included some great ones here, too. While I’m celebrating sending my children off to school to be someone else’s problem, I offer you homeschoolers my profoundest admiration and good wishes.

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Posted By Christina M on August 19, 2005

Just for fun…

I Am (Modern) Woman

I am woman, hear me roar
I slammed my fingers in the door
As I loaded groceries in my minivan.
I had to run down to the store
To get spot cleaner for the floor
And I still have dinner and dessert to plan

Yes, I’m barefoot, but I’m calloused against pain.
Yes, I’ve given birth, and look how much I’ve gained.
If I have to, I can clean anything.
I am tired. My roots are visible. I am woman.

I’m experienced at baking
And I’ve won awards for making
Things from dryer lint and toilet paper rolls.
And my son’s a little leaguer,
So of course I’m always eager
To sew uniforms whenever they get holes.

Yes, I’m barefoot, but I’m calloused against pain.
Yes, I’ve given birth, and look how much I’ve gained.
If I have to, I can clean anything.
I am tired. My roots are visible. I am woman.

I am woman, watch me grow.
I no longer see my toes,
And I’m spreading even farther as we speak.
But there’s ironing to do,
As soon as my soap opera’s through.
Just because I stay home doesn’t mean I’m weak.

Yes, I’m barefoot, but I’m calloused against pain.
Yes, I’ve given birth, and look how much I’ve gained.
If I have to, I can clean anything.
I am tired. My roots are visible. I am woman.

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Posted By Christina M on August 7, 2005

The Biblical and theological argument that many Catholics hear most is that of Sola Fide, Faith Alone. The argument goes that we are saved by faith alone, and anyone who doesn’t believe that is not saved.

I will leave aside for the moment, the fact that the word “alone” was added by Luther and was never found in any earlier copy of Scriptures, nor in any original language text of Scriptures. I will leave aside, also, the Book of James, and its admonitions that both faith and works are necessary, and its specific statement that we are not saved by faith alone.

What I want to address today is the fact that the buzzphrase “faith alone” has come, in modern times, to represent a belief that Christians are saved not by faith but by doctrine. I do not want to imply that this applies to all Christians who believe in Sola Fide, but a large enough majority of the Sola Fide apologists do hold to this view that I think it deserves — and needs — discussion.

The fact is that salvation by faith alone would not mean salvation by faith in salvation by faith alone. That sounded jumbled; let me restate it. The idea that Christians are saved by faith alone is, though mistaken, not a barrier to an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ (read: grace). The idea that we are saved by faith in the notion of faith alone implies that it is not faith in Jesus that saves, but knowledge in a doctrine. In essence, it becomes a modern-day fundamentalist version of gnosticism; it teaches that we are saved by knowledge and not by faith or works.

What makes it dangerous is that no doctrine can substitute for grace, which is the real point of Christ’s salvation. Whether grace occurs by faith, works, or a combination of the two I’ll leave for another discussion; but let there be no mistaking that the saved person is the person with grace. Grace is union with Jesus. But the moment we attempt to make a doctrine the point of salvation, we shove grace out of the picture. That is much more dangerous than the idea of salvation by faith alone itself, because it leaves room for the Christian to call himself saved even if he does not have the relationship of grace with Jesus. “I am saved,” he can assert, ” because I believe in Sola Fide.”

I knew someone who beat his wife, molested her child, sold drugs, and used the Bible as an excuse to give her every manner of abuse: verbal, physical, sexual, spiritual. “I have a right,” he would say, “because I’m the husband, and you are obliged to submit to me.” I won’t bother to ennumerate the ways and reasons that his logic was twisted and wrong; but I will say that this man considered himself a Christian, a saved Christian, because he believed in Sola Fide. He had faith that Faith Alone was all that was needed for salvation, so love and a relationship with Jesus were simply not necessary to him.

Behaving as Jesus would want him to behave wasn’t necessary; he held the doctrine of Faith Alone.
Treating his marital bed as sacred was not necessary; he had Faith Alone.
Prayer (which could have healed him of his anger, hatred, and cruelty) wasn’t necessary for this man of faith, because he held to Faith Alone.

And in his book, the only thing necessary to salvation was faith in the doctrine of Faith Alone. He was saved by doctrine.

To the many Christians who hold to the doctrine of Sola Fide, I may debate you on the subject at some other time; for now I will leave alone the question of whether Sola Fide is wrong or right. But I implore you to reconsider, if you are under the impression that believing in Faith Alone is the litmus test of Christianity. God wants a relationship with us, not merely a bumper sticker announcement of a single doctrine.

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