Tuesday, October 31, 2006

No excuses ....

.... 'cuz you've heard 'em all before, things like school and monastic blogs and funerals and procrastinatitis and .....

And that doesn't even include the recent issues of foundational wetness (living in a basement that's gotten a bit too damp), which has led one of my housemates to be paranoid that I'm about to die of mold inhalation....

But, on the plus side ..... the Pit of Despair actually got cleaned. All the way. Well, maybe not the closet and under the bed and in the desk drawers and on the book shelves, but ..... it's a vast improvement. And at least I didn't stuff more under my bed or in the closet or on the shelves on in the drawers. Under the bed did at least get neatened. In the closet got pulled out and rearranged (hence, the first discovery of aforementioned foundational wetness) {and yes, I mean "first" in the truest most unfortunate sense of the word!}, but the room got put together after the first damp dismemberment and subsequent dousing with Lysol. Second de-damping resulted in boxes being stored out in the open of the not-so-spacious basement cave, but it's not in the way either. I need to do a little maintenance neatening, but all in all, I'm pretty proud of myself ....

Teen Page is looking pretty cool .... still have a LOT to do, especially since we've got the Vocations Dinner with the Archbishop Friday night and I'm hoping to get the kids there hooked into it ..... so it'd be good if there's some content on the cool-looking page for them to actually LOOK at.

To my credit, I do have a couple different posts for my sadly neglected Nuntime begun in Palmy, and several more keep floating through my head, but ..... it don't mean nuttin' till I push that "Publish" button. (Like it? I just made it up! Maybe I should copyright it.....)

I think a lot of it, though, has just been major disillusionment, discouragement, or diffuse disgruntledness. All the violence & school shootings, all the escalated rhetoric about the war, all the blame-hurling.

And, of course, there's the priceless joy of Election Day. The time where the {allegedly} top nation in the world chooses its leaders simply on the basis of "Me? Let's not talk about me. Let's talk instead about that slimeball over there. You know what I've heard? I heard he's got COOTIES!!!!!"

Ask not what your nation can do for you; ask what you can do for your nation. Or, even better, ask what your opponent has done that is worse for your nation than what you've done.

"When their record's great, insinuate!" (Another Sr. Steph original ... you like?)

For those who might join me in my disgust at this, let me point out that, apparently, none of this is negative campaigning, because "Negative campaigning is vicious personal attacks. This isn't personal at all." Needless to say, I was thrilled when I heard about the group of high schoolers spearheading the Unity Petition --- but I almost feel like I've given up on even that. I'm not feeling too positive that anything's gonna change this rampant hatred and bitterness and competition and all-around yucky behavior.

Hence, my absence of sarcastic snark.

Nargh. What a waste of a perfectly good November 7th.

Oh well .... in the meantime, can I appease you with my pDNA? I stole it off the RevGals .... I'm not sure how well it actually applies to me, but when my brain decides to function again, perhaps I'll be able find more connections. Maybe if I didn't have all my answers so close to the middle ...... Regardless, hover over colors for brief blurbs.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Prayer Request

My friend, housemate, confrere, frequent commenter and first-year teacher Jeana just began at a local Catholic high school two months ago. This morning, while at the monastery, she received a phone call that one of her kids was killed. Apparently, an (uninjured) senior has been arrested for driving drunk and having drug paraphernalia; she ran into a car being driven by a junior (who was announced dead at the scene) with a junior passenger (who is currently hospitalized).

Jeana thinks she may have helped the senior driver once, and also thinks she might teach her sister; she didn't have the name or anything of the girl who was hospitalized. The guy who was killed, though, was one of her top kids. Either way, as the only junior religion teacher ...... she's got one hell of a time ahead of her. And then once you add the nun-factor in ......

So for her, for the school, for the family and friends, for the girl now in jail .... and for an end to all these stupid decisions that leave people pointlessly dead.

I always tell my kids that their assignment over the weekend is to "Be Smart" .... unfortunately, it doesn't always work if the other people out there don't play the same way.

Friday, October 06, 2006

Weekend Wonderings --- What If ....?

What if, rather than a US Congressman, Mark Foley was instead a Roman Catholic priest?
It's always interesting to see who gets benefit of the doubt and who gets immediately blamed.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Weekend Wonderings

Had Charles Carl Roberts IV not killed himself ....

How would we be balancing out our society's thirst for blood with the deep-seated Amish belief in forgiveness?

And will we ever learn?????????
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