Any normal person, when faced with a heap of excrement like this, would go get the shovel and clean it up. Maybe they wouldn’t be happy about it, but they would clean it up, because it is a pile of dog poop in the middle of the yard. Instead, I started listing all the things I had already gotten done that day, all the things I was still going to do, and I said, “No! It’s not my job! I had enough things that are my job. Not gonna do it. Not. My. Job.”
You’ll also find regular exercise gives you more energy to do something that is absolutely essential: putting in some one-on-one time with your other kids. It’s all too easy for them to feel displaced and neglected when the new baby comes, so it is essential to carve out some special time to connect with them, consistently and intentionally, academically, emotionally, spiritually, and just for some plain old silly old mommy-and-me fun, or else they will grow up to be crack whores.
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That’s the problem: it’s complicated. Maybe too complicated for any administrative fiat or change in policy to change. As the clergy said to the press in Baltimore, “There’s been a state of emergency way before tonight . . . it’s been a long time coming.” How can we fix this? Not by shouting, “You’re a thug!” “Well, you’re a racist!” over and over again.
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Archbishop Joseph Naumann
Finn may not have been aware of Ratigan’s actions, but he should have been. There is no excuse for a bishop to ignore even the hint of sexual abuse in the Church; and whether or not his critics have ulterior motives for wanting him gone, his resignation was necessary. Even Finn’s defenders must agree that the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph is hurting badly, and Bishop Finn’s presence as leader was only prolonging the pain. He could not effectively lead the diocese, and the Vatican must make it clear that real change is afoot.
“Dear god, whose name I do not know, Thank you for my life. I forgot… how BIG… thank you. Thank you for my life.”
The scene works because it shows so nicely how change of heart really comes about in our lives: not always in the clearly-defined moments of choice, but in the middle of the night, when we see with our hearts what the world is really like.
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Jesus died for everybody, true. But He also died for each of us, specifically, individually, lovingly. Inefficiently. He would have died just for me. Why, I do not know. But I know it wasn’t just poetic license when God says that the hairs on my head are counted. Salvation is not some kind of corporate endeavor for maximum efficiency. It’s not efficient, and, thank God, it’s not fair
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2. The invisible, celebratory fireworks that explode in your head when the credit card machine says, “APPROVED.”
An experienced mother is never taken by surprise. Unless there is a shark in the house.
That’s not a naked bottom. That’s a grenade, and you are its next victim unless you take evasive action. I don’t care how many times the baby just pooped, how many gallons she produced, and how finished you reckon she must be by now. I’m telling you, before you take that diaper off, get another diaper ready NOW NOW NOW. Maybe two diapers. Maybe a towel you never cared for.
The expense of obtaining a decree of nullity makes it difficult for some people to come into full communion with the Church. When annulments are expensive, there is also the risk that outsiders (or even Catholics) perceive that annulment is just “Catholic divorce,” for sale to parishioners with enough ready cash. But here’s the problem: it really does cost money to do it right.
This isn’t about Communion in the hand vs. Communion on the tongue. This is about the casual abuses we allow ourselves to commit — we faithful ones, we educated ones, we who have been told. We who should know better. Somebody told us. The one up there, hanging over the altar with His arms spread out, open to be abused, open to be misunderstood, open to be ignored — what has He done but tell us, over and over again, that He is here, giving Himself to us, because we don’t care?
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