1. Look, ma, I wrote something!
2. It's Charles Dickens' 200th birthday! Everyone CELEBRATE! And have a dramatic reading of A Tale of Two Cities or something.
3. Have a classic:
The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be A pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn. (Wordsworth)
4. Things I've been reading:
At the slacktivist: Poor Women's Health as a Political Bargaining Chip
I was desperately uncomfortable at Mass on Sunday when they read the bishops' lettter, and the article that Fred Clark posted an excerpt of touches on (part of) what I felt:
I see being pro-life across the board and consistently as the defining characteristic of a pro-life Catholic. And so as a pro-life Catholic, I find it incomprehensible--I find it outrageous and shameful--that my church's leaders are willing to ally themselves with political leaders whose goals are in no sense at all pro-life, except that these political leaders continue to promise to outlaw abortion if they're elected. (But they haven't done so when elected and given a chance to move in that direction.)I don't know what I'd call myself in terms of the pro-life/pro-choice debate. Probably somewhere in the middle--a hard place to be when the rhetoric on both sides seems so...vitriolic. But if you're going to talk to me about being "pro-life," I'm going to say this: okay, so are you willing to support programs for single parents and families who are struggling? Are you going to stand up and "this is wrong" when they cut funding for social services programs? And, hey, by the way, are you anti-death penalty?
(Sometimes, in my very bad moods, I'm tempted to move to a cabin in the woods. I hate politics.)
I hear your frustration. Politics tend to control much of what we can call religion, and consequently we are left with ailing and often hypocritical institutions that speak to one thing and fail to act. The church as a whole, not just the Catholic church, needs to understand this in order to move forward.
ReplyDeleteI started to try to work through my thoughts on the "abortion issue" a while back, but only got as far as expressing my frustration with the whole topic. I need to go back and finish working on those, not least because the topic keeps coming up and I'd like to have a prepared blurb that I can send people to.
ReplyDeleteThe church, small and big c, being in power has never been a good thing. I tend toward the "power corrupts" sort of thing. Hapax, mmy and Amaryllis had a really good mini-discussion on the slacktiverse "Board Post" thread about the Catholic church and the difference between the lay people and the people in power.
ReplyDeleteMost of the time, I don't want to touch "the abortion issue" with a ten-foot pole. It's not worth the agita.
I'm very much in agreement. Unfortunately, it's an election year, and my wife has some *very* conservative relatives who like to post - and argue - on Facebook. So, since short of blocking the lot of them I'll have to hear about it, I figure the least I can do is outline my position.
ReplyDeleteBut if you're going to talk to me about being "pro-life," I'm going to say this: okay, so are you willing to support programs for single parents and families who are struggling? Are you going to stand up and "this is wrong" when they cut funding for social services programs? And, hey, by the way, are you anti-death penalty?
ReplyDeleteYes, yes, yes. Especially because no matter what anyone thinks of the Catholic Church's opinions on abortion and birth control they do hold those other pro-life opinions. So any Catholic politician screaming about how we aren't respecting the Catholic church's position on birth control should be screaming as well about how our justice system is using taxpayer dollars to carry out the death penalty and favor the rich. It's so hypocritical to think otherwise.