Old World Swine

Hey... Zippy's Back!

Zippy Catholic, love him or hate him, has apparently returned to blogging, at least for now.

To an unusual degree, Zippy chases the fundamental logic of moral arguments all the way into their hidey-holes and shakes them like a dog. That's why some hate him. Okay, maybe "hate" is too strong a word, but boy do they wish he would shut up.

It was largely due to his patient exposition that I was able to sort out my own jumbled thoughts and come down firmly against torture (yes, that means waterboarding)... and understand why.

Because I am not trained in philosophy (I'm barely housebroken) Zippy and his interlocutors sometimes lose me in the sharp turns, but his blog has always been instructive and worth reading.

Welcome back, Zippy!

Warning... Annoyingly Content

Snow!

I very nearly posted a brief announcemnet that blogging might be halted indefinitely on account of a likely repeat of the horrid ice storm that left us without power for days last year (please pray for those for whom this, again, is a reality).

As it turns out, there was less ice than was feared in our area, but an abundance of snow that continues to fall more heavily every hour. There is turkey chili in the crock pot, the teapot singing on the stove, and plenty of wood for the fireplace. We are well stocked up on wine and beer and food... and pipe tobacco.

I don't know what heaven may be like, but on a day like today, simply withdraw sin and death from the world and it is beyond my feeble imagination to think of anything much better. But then, we know that heaven is not only better, but better by orders of magnitude... infinitely better; more varied, more interesting, more beautiful. Here the grace of God operates in disguise, but there we will know it fully, without foggy, intervening layers or perception.

As St. Paul sad;

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. - 1 Cor. 13:12

But for now...my, look at it snow!

It Becomes Clearer

The Evolution of Freedom

1776 - Freedom = Living in whatever way one thinks most pleasing to God

1976 - Freedom = Living in whatever way one thinks most pleasing

2010 - Freedom = "Whatever"

Competition Painting - "Swimmers"

This one is entered in a national show of note.

"Give success to the work of our hands." - Psalm 90

Say WHAAAAT??

(Cross-posted at The League of Bearded Catholics blog)

Hello, is this thing on?

*Harrumph*... perhaps I was busy trimming my beard, or maybe my nose hair (which requires far greater concentration), but I seem to have completely missed out on any national conversation or debate over this, which I'm sure must have been vocal and abundant.  Far be it that anyone should get all worked up over such a trivial matter, but in looking over the instructions for the IRS Form 1040, I recently found the following;

Expiring tax benefits.

The following benefits are scheduled to expire and will not be available for 2010.

... The exclusion from income of qualified charitable distributions

 

Tax-deductible charitable contributions are... just gone? In the words of my old Building-and-Loan pal, George Bailey... "Do you realize what this means?"

Did I read this wrong? Am I dreaming?

UPDATE: So, a couple of knowledgable commenters at Jimmy Akin's blog have pointed out that, unlike the "charitable tax deduction", the "exclusion from income" is limited to direct contributions of things like IRAs to charitiy. So, a follow up question: how will this affect charities and donors? How greatly do charitable organizations count on this sort of funding?

It doesn't sound as dire as I had imagined.

Gathering My Wits

Sorry for the long silence. I had two unexpected family funerals in one week; two of my aunts passed away, my mom's sisters. Please pray for the families, and thanks to all who have done so.

On the positive side, funerals in the U.S. also have the strange and wonderful aspect of being family reunions, so I saw a bunch of family members who I had not seen in years or even decades. Wonderful people. I'm full of church potluck food, sweet tea and my uncle's barbecue. He runs a drive-up BBQ place - the Polar Freeze - that is a local legend.

On a tangential note, something I've always wondered about because it seems to happen to me a lot... a kind of physics problem, or something like that. Maybe Einstein could have explained it;

Why is it that, when driving on the freeway, I can gain steadily on another driver for a mile or two, and yet, when I pull out to pass, as soon as my front wheels are even with their rear quarterpanel, they begin to match my speed exactly? Is this some sort of relativity puzzle?

Also, how is it that a driver can gain steadily on me for a mile, pass me, and then slow down until I'm forced to either brake or go around them? Red shift? A gravity well? It drives me nuts.

Oops!

My 18-year-old son recently returned home safely (thanks be to God) from a trek, all on his own, to Germany.

We were a little concerned - okay, tied into knots - about his making connections, getting through security and customs, especially in Madrid, where we had absolutely no one who could have assisted him if something went haywire.

Anyway, things turned out fine, with only an inconvenient delay in Chicago and the tardy return of his luggage a day after he arrived at home. So, all good.

A few days ago, though, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the bic lighter pictured above. He had accidentally carried it with him to Deutschland and back. It went through X-ray machines and security checks multiple times.

So, ya know... be careful, out there.

Prayers, Please

We happen t have a lot of folks in my extended family in need of prayer right now;

My Uncle, who is eighty-one, recovering from recent surgery on his back, also two days ago lost his wife (my mom's sister) to a sudden stroke. Her funeral is Friday.

Their son, my cousin, is recovering from gall bladder surgery and may not even be able to come to his mom's funeral.

My mom's other sister has been battling cancer for 3 years and has just been sent home for hospice care and pain meds. There is no treatment left.

In addition, my brother, who had just arrived for my aunt's memorial, just got word that his wife has been checked into the hospital (by their daughter) for what the docs have found to be congestive heart failure. No surgery planned at present, but she is in intensive care with pneumonia and fluid around the heart and is very weak. Now he's 15 hours from home and may need to turn around and head back ASAP.

I covet your prayers on their behalf.

No Words

I went walking in the snow, yesterday, with our Border Collie, and we were very quickly joined by a neighborhood mutt, a lovely yellow Lab mix with a black snout. She was very sweet and friendly, and went with us the whole mile around our circuit.

To our (leashed) dog's chagrine, the lab was the picture of joy and freedom, tail erect, bounding ahead of us, snuffling in the snow, then leaping away like a deer. She ran four times as far as we walked.

It bothered me at the time that I was not a poet, and therefore could never find the words to describe the vital playfulness of that dog, or the feeling of walking in that snow between the white sunlight and the blue shadows of the trees.

Then I thought that part of the joy of heaven must be the kind of communication we will enjoy there, direct and unencumbered by the brain or barriers of language and vocabulary. To us, these things are bridges, but they are also, oddly, barriers.

I've been trying to tell my daughter about heaven, lately, because she asks what it is like. When I try to get across the idea that we will all be praising God all the time, she doesn't get it. This doesn't sound all that interesting or pleasant to her, right now. I can see the problem, and I can see why she would not be the only one with the same objection; talk about the same thing all the time? That sounds dreary, especially for, you know, eternity.

People naturally object to the idea that citizens of heaven will only, ever be talking about one subject, even if it is God. But the truth is, there is only One subject, even now. We just don't see it. We think that when we talk about the beauty of a landscape, or how great the soup is at the Italian restaurant we found, or the friskiness of a puppy, that we are talking about something besides the glory of God. Our minds are fragmented and broken into little compartments, and so we see the praise of Christmas fudge and good beer as quite distinct from the praise of God. And so it is, but not like we think.

God is the source and the maker of every kind of good thing, and when we praise any good thing, we are talking about some facet of the genius and handiwork of God, whether we know it or not.

Yes, we will do nothing but praise God in heaven for eternity, but this will be anything but dull. Most of us at present have only ever had the chance to see and appreciate an infinitesimally small sliver even of our own world... and we will have all of the New Heaven and the New Earth to explore, then.