I LOVE books.
I know, you are surprised. Very surprised. I'm one of those people who say, "hey, I have a book for that" for practically every problem. I was trying to figure out what to write a book report on, but I'm not sure I can concentrate that long yet, esp. since I'm reading about five books at once again, because Christmas came. Silly Christmas. My mom and dad are no help. :)
My dad got me "Bless Me Father, For I Have Kids" by Susie Lloyd. He got me her first book, too. She has great Catholic mommy humor. Truly great. A way with words.
My husband got me the Pioneer Woman cookbook. It is her blog, only in a book. Tons of pictures, and delightfully simple, yummy, ranch food that is not diet food. GREAT book. She is sooooo funny. You've never seen a cookbook like this!
I'm working through the Story of the World series with Gabe. He begs me to read it every night. Happily, it is as objective as it can really get, being history and all. It's also very good as WORLD history and as a story book. It includes Chinese, African and any other history that is written anywhere. Not just wester civ. Exactly what I needed. Also, she wrote "The Well-Trained Mind" and other books, and that is very educational as well!
A new book to us, but one that comes highly recommended, is "Boundaries". I have a feeling it's a truly great one. Really. It covers relationships with EVERYONE, even your own self. And it covers spiritual warfare, too. It puts problems in perspective: only you can actually solve them, don't blame anyone else. Very correct.
The kids are teaching the two year old to play the wii, and it is going very well. I have to go for now, but I will try to link those paragraphs to amazon for you later.
Happy reading!!
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Today's doings and a book report
Today we went to the hospital because some sort of clear liquid went down my legs. But no contractions. So we went to the hospital, and it was nothing much. Thanks to two friends who babysat in roundabout fashion while I watched TLC and the Discovery Channel at the hospital. Wheee! What did I watch? Adoption Story and Baby Story. I watched Dennis Miller until he decided it was fun to make dumb Pope jokes, which I feel are beneath him. Change of channel. One lady in Baby Story had twins at home on the floor, labor happened so fast! SCARY!
There is no labor going on here.
We have been remodeling the kitchen, and it is pretty much done, and it is gorgeous. Will have to post some pics of that.
I was thinking how much I wish I could insert a microchip in my husband's head. That microchip would contain the books I've been reading. He almost never reads what I read, and me telling him what it was just doesn't do it justice at all. It seems this is a common wife complaint. Guys tend to have the attention span only for magazines. Oddly, the sci fi and fantasy books he does read are actually pretty tough reading. And not what I would seek out. I do read them sometimes. We both really like George RR Martin's fantasy series, but he's putting off Dance With Dragons FOREVER, and it's killing me! But that's an example of something we both like.
I thought earlier in this blog that I might change the tack of things somewhat. It might be fun to do book reports. I know Barb wants me to. So far I've only got to recommendations, but I'd like to actually do a sort of book journal, and copy whole paragraphs in here for folks to peruse and reflect upon. I think I shall try.
Rikki's husband came upon a book called Eliminate Chaos, by a local author and home organizer. I have to say, it's by far the best book on the subject I have seen. Before and after pics help, and she just has a lot of really good ideas, along with some ideas on how we got stuck in our big mess anyway.
Here is the book!
I shall be using this book. Happily, my kitchen has been decluttered, because I had to box everything and take it out. Now I shall only put back in what I really use. Hooray! Huzzah! Then I can go after the boy's room. Notice, I am carefullly avoiding my own room, which is too scary to contemplate. We shall not be allowed to move til I conquer this place, though. You'd think that would motivate me, wouldn't you?
Time to go make dinner for the two kids who are home. Two others have gone to a pack meeting with daddy, which I am soooooo thankful for. Thank you honey!!!
There is no labor going on here.
We have been remodeling the kitchen, and it is pretty much done, and it is gorgeous. Will have to post some pics of that.
I was thinking how much I wish I could insert a microchip in my husband's head. That microchip would contain the books I've been reading. He almost never reads what I read, and me telling him what it was just doesn't do it justice at all. It seems this is a common wife complaint. Guys tend to have the attention span only for magazines. Oddly, the sci fi and fantasy books he does read are actually pretty tough reading. And not what I would seek out. I do read them sometimes. We both really like George RR Martin's fantasy series, but he's putting off Dance With Dragons FOREVER, and it's killing me! But that's an example of something we both like.
I thought earlier in this blog that I might change the tack of things somewhat. It might be fun to do book reports. I know Barb wants me to. So far I've only got to recommendations, but I'd like to actually do a sort of book journal, and copy whole paragraphs in here for folks to peruse and reflect upon. I think I shall try.
Rikki's husband came upon a book called Eliminate Chaos, by a local author and home organizer. I have to say, it's by far the best book on the subject I have seen. Before and after pics help, and she just has a lot of really good ideas, along with some ideas on how we got stuck in our big mess anyway.
Here is the book!
I shall be using this book. Happily, my kitchen has been decluttered, because I had to box everything and take it out. Now I shall only put back in what I really use. Hooray! Huzzah! Then I can go after the boy's room. Notice, I am carefullly avoiding my own room, which is too scary to contemplate. We shall not be allowed to move til I conquer this place, though. You'd think that would motivate me, wouldn't you?
Time to go make dinner for the two kids who are home. Two others have gone to a pack meeting with daddy, which I am soooooo thankful for. Thank you honey!!!
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Dr. Ray Guarendi is a genius!
Ha ha... I did not get to hear him speak today locally, but my friend Rikki did, while I babysat her kids. In return, I got a mocha and my book signed by Dr. Ray, as well as another book by him, also signed.
Here is his main website:
http://www.drray.com/index.htm
Here are the books I got!
This dude really knows his stuff. I sometimes disagree with him, but generally he's much more right on that most psych types. Much more sensible, and has walked the walk, which helps, especially when it comes to adoption. They have adopted ten kids. What I loved was the part where he said they didn't really intend to keep adopting that many. "How can you accidentally adopt?" you ask? Oh, it can happen. I know a lady who says she adopted on of her kids through Fabricland in my hometown. It was just one of those conversations, and one thing led to another. I love it!
If you need something fresh and exciting in your parenting adventure, you have indeed come to the right guy. For most things.
Here is his main website:
http://www.drray.com/index.htm
Here are the books I got!
This dude really knows his stuff. I sometimes disagree with him, but generally he's much more right on that most psych types. Much more sensible, and has walked the walk, which helps, especially when it comes to adoption. They have adopted ten kids. What I loved was the part where he said they didn't really intend to keep adopting that many. "How can you accidentally adopt?" you ask? Oh, it can happen. I know a lady who says she adopted on of her kids through Fabricland in my hometown. It was just one of those conversations, and one thing led to another. I love it!
If you need something fresh and exciting in your parenting adventure, you have indeed come to the right guy. For most things.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
What I've Been Reading
I really should name a new blog that name, but I think what I will do instead is just start doing that as often as I remember. The problem is that I read at night, and I blog in the morning. But I will start with one quote from a Little House on the Prairie book.
It's the last one -- The First Four Years. It takes place in the late 1800's, when Laura and her husband Almanzo "Manly" Wilder, were first married. She had said she'd not marry a farmer because she was tired of the constant state of not knowing if they'd survive from year to year. She was 18 when they married. They had a little girl, Rose, and then a boy, who died when he was weeks old. She was never able to have more children, and Rose did not have any children either, it turns out.
In any case, there is a part of the book where they are made an offer of a herd of sheep. They figure it's a good investment, because you can always sell wool, they have a place to graze them, and they are working with a relative who will keep an eye on them. It does turn out well, but get a load of the reason why the owner of the sheep sold them in the first place! I cracked up!!!
Cousin Peter came one Sunday to tell Manly and Laura that Mr. Whitehead wanted to sell his sheep, a hundred purebred Shropshires.
A presidential election was coming in the fall, and it looked as though the Democrats were due to win. If they did, Mr. Whitehead, being a good Republican, was sure the country would be ruined. The tariff would be taken off, and wool and sheep would be worth nothing. Peter was sure they could be bought at a bargain.
They ended up splitting the cost with cousin Peter, at two dollars per sheep, and wool nearly paid for them the next year. In addition, the sheep all had lambs, and the herd nearly doubled in size in one year.
I think I'd call that a wise investment, and proof that fear is not good for anyone.
It's the last one -- The First Four Years. It takes place in the late 1800's, when Laura and her husband Almanzo "Manly" Wilder, were first married. She had said she'd not marry a farmer because she was tired of the constant state of not knowing if they'd survive from year to year. She was 18 when they married. They had a little girl, Rose, and then a boy, who died when he was weeks old. She was never able to have more children, and Rose did not have any children either, it turns out.
In any case, there is a part of the book where they are made an offer of a herd of sheep. They figure it's a good investment, because you can always sell wool, they have a place to graze them, and they are working with a relative who will keep an eye on them. It does turn out well, but get a load of the reason why the owner of the sheep sold them in the first place! I cracked up!!!
Cousin Peter came one Sunday to tell Manly and Laura that Mr. Whitehead wanted to sell his sheep, a hundred purebred Shropshires.
A presidential election was coming in the fall, and it looked as though the Democrats were due to win. If they did, Mr. Whitehead, being a good Republican, was sure the country would be ruined. The tariff would be taken off, and wool and sheep would be worth nothing. Peter was sure they could be bought at a bargain.
They ended up splitting the cost with cousin Peter, at two dollars per sheep, and wool nearly paid for them the next year. In addition, the sheep all had lambs, and the herd nearly doubled in size in one year.
I think I'd call that a wise investment, and proof that fear is not good for anyone.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
A Live Coal in the Sea
I really had to copy-blog this. I love Madeleine L'Engle. Occasionally we do not see eye to eye, and there are two of her books in particular I would NOT recommend, but all the others are amazing. Wonderful. Real. Faithful. She was not a dumb woman.
A Wrinkle In Time is her most famous, but I think she wrote perhaps 80 works.
The DHM wrote this today at the Common Room. I hope she never yells at me for copying her, but she has such profound things to write and provides such interesting sources. I hope someday we can meet in real life.
Enjoy!
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Weathering Storms
"Mark Twain once observed that no couple could begin to know the bliss of being married, short of twenty-five years together. In the presence of a companionable middle-aged pair, young romance seems a feeble reed in comparison to the strong plant of their devotion. How have they weathered the storms and reached such a mature affection, that the shining joy in being together is a blessing to all who touch their lives?" ~Josephine Moffett Benton, in The Pace of a Hen
When I read A Live Coal in the Sea, by Madeline L'Engle, I thought of that passage from Pace of a Hen. Coincidentally, a friend of mine in another state also read Live Coal at the same I did. Neither of us knew the other was reading it. When she finished it, she emailed me the very same quote from it that I had intended to email to her:
"He who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars. General good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer, for Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized particulars." ~William Blake
She also shared with me the source of the quote which provided the title of L'Engle's book:
"But all the wickedness in the world which man may do or think is no more to the mercy of God than a live coal dropped in the sea." William Langland c. 1400.
A Wrinkle In Time is her most famous, but I think she wrote perhaps 80 works.
The DHM wrote this today at the Common Room. I hope she never yells at me for copying her, but she has such profound things to write and provides such interesting sources. I hope someday we can meet in real life.
Enjoy!
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Weathering Storms
"Mark Twain once observed that no couple could begin to know the bliss of being married, short of twenty-five years together. In the presence of a companionable middle-aged pair, young romance seems a feeble reed in comparison to the strong plant of their devotion. How have they weathered the storms and reached such a mature affection, that the shining joy in being together is a blessing to all who touch their lives?" ~Josephine Moffett Benton, in The Pace of a Hen
When I read A Live Coal in the Sea, by Madeline L'Engle, I thought of that passage from Pace of a Hen. Coincidentally, a friend of mine in another state also read Live Coal at the same I did. Neither of us knew the other was reading it. When she finished it, she emailed me the very same quote from it that I had intended to email to her:
"He who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars. General good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer, for Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized particulars." ~William Blake
She also shared with me the source of the quote which provided the title of L'Engle's book:
"But all the wickedness in the world which man may do or think is no more to the mercy of God than a live coal dropped in the sea." William Langland c. 1400.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Little House Books in order
I am fairly obsessed with the Little House series now. I was wondering if I could find a real order for them, and here it is! Hooray!!
http://melissawiley.com/blog/2008/10/14/the-little-house-books-in-chronological-order/
If you've never read them, do! It took me an MODG book list to finally dive in, and we all LOVE them!
http://melissawiley.com/blog/2008/10/14/the-little-house-books-in-chronological-order/
If you've never read them, do! It took me an MODG book list to finally dive in, and we all LOVE them!
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Book on Japanese Martyrs
This appears to be a self-published book, and I can't find it being sold anywhere. It says it was published by Cereus Publications in Burlington, KY, and it is very good. It covers a lot of history of Japanese Catholicism through the eyes of a 14 year old boy who is sort of ashamed of being Japanese and German in ancestry, and whose mom has already died. His Japanese grandmother helps him understand why his heritage is important and that his German American father really does love him. It's a little bit of a fantasy because there is time travel involved. It reminds me of "The Devil's Arithmetic" by Jane Yolen. Instead of a Jewish girl going back in time to Auschwitz, this boy goes back in time to the 26 Japanese Martyrs of Nagasaki. Then it fast-forwards through many other events, including the Japanese Internment during WWII and the bombing of Nagasaki. I think it was very well done, even if it's not going to win a Pulitzer.
The part that most struck me was the Japanese Internment. These were actual American citizens. Many had been born in the US, even a couple of generations' worth. It was very sad to think that out of fear, their country turned on them. If you haven't read up on it, do. It only happened about 60 years ago. What makes people think that can never happen again? If people forget, it's more likely to happen.
The other important part was that Catholics in Japan were in hiding for 230 years with no outside help or direction. They hid, and kept their faith alive. In the bombing of Nagasaki, and estimated 8000 Catholics were killed. I imagine that is a big part of the reason there aren't that many Catholics in Japan. By the way, the current prime minister of Japan in Catholic. That's a first. But I don't think it's in the culture to talk about that kind of thing much. He never speaks of it.
I'd be happy to loan this out if anyone wants to read. It's probably for kids over 12, especially the part about Nagasaki. Over 14 for sensitive kids. It's not too graphic, but it does not pretend about what happened. It does show the hope and love that Christ brings us as Catholics in the direst of circumstances.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
New Fun Toy: Librarything
Omigoodness. I found a great thing the other day. I had been wondering what it was, but hadn't dared look.
It is a wonderful database tool, which is connected to Amazon and the Library of Congress, among other things. You type in part of the title, and the rest comes up and you pick the one you want and enter it. You can use "tags" to sort them, and then you find out what you have and what you don't. You can keep it private or share with others. I'm so excited, because honestly, I have a hard time deciding what to get rid of and what to keep, and finding what I need when I want to use it is hard. I always find it later and say, "I could have used that last month."
Homeschooling stuff is especially in need. I shudder to think what the total number is going to be....
Library Thing
It is a wonderful database tool, which is connected to Amazon and the Library of Congress, among other things. You type in part of the title, and the rest comes up and you pick the one you want and enter it. You can use "tags" to sort them, and then you find out what you have and what you don't. You can keep it private or share with others. I'm so excited, because honestly, I have a hard time deciding what to get rid of and what to keep, and finding what I need when I want to use it is hard. I always find it later and say, "I could have used that last month."
Homeschooling stuff is especially in need. I shudder to think what the total number is going to be....
Library Thing
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Pulitzer prizes
It occurred to me I might be an idiot, and only Americans can get Pulitzers, which would be why O'Brien doesn't get one. But then I looked it up. I don't think O'Brien qualifies, because of this, but maybe he does. I don't think he has a weekly column, but maybe he should get one, just to qualify.
9. Must I be a U.S. citizen to apply for a Pulitzer Prize?
Only U.S. citizens are eligible to apply for the Prizes in Letters, Drama and Music (with the exception of the History category in Letters where the book must be a history of the United States but the author may be of any nationality). For the Journalism competition, entrants may be of any nationality but work must have appeared in a U.S. newspaper published at least once a week or on a newspaper's Web site.
9. Must I be a U.S. citizen to apply for a Pulitzer Prize?
Only U.S. citizens are eligible to apply for the Prizes in Letters, Drama and Music (with the exception of the History category in Letters where the book must be a history of the United States but the author may be of any nationality). For the Journalism competition, entrants may be of any nationality but work must have appeared in a U.S. newspaper published at least once a week or on a newspaper's Web site.
Author Michael O'Brien
This is a fascinating letter, especially if you have read any of Michael O'Brien's books. This guy deserves a Pulitzer, and some people wonder if the reason no one considers that fact is because of anti-Catholic bias. If it's religious, it can't possibly get a nod like a Pulitzer. He's very, very good, well researched, and amazing at making his stories seem real. If you haven't read them yet, I encourage you to pick up one of his books. Fr. Elijah will make more sense if you read the others, but it's also fine on its own.
Enjoy!
Michael O'Brien Newsletter Regarding Barack Obama and the Question of the Anti-Christ
All Saints Day, 1 November 2008
Dear Friends,
From just north of the border, we Canadians, like other people throughout the world, are observing and praying for the coming federal election in the United States of America. I would prefer to keep private my counsel about political choices, because it is not my country. However, I am receiving letters from American subscribers and visitors to my studio website asking me some rather surprising questions about Barack Obama, related to one of my novels.
During the past year I have read a number of his pronouncements, and saw the smoke and mirrors beneath the rhetoric, but couldn't understand why everyone south of the border (the other south of the border, the 49th parallel) was getting so excited about him, both pro and con. Then a few weeks ago a German friend called me immediately after Obama's speech in Berlin, to say that the presidential candidate had mesmerized the crowds, and that a commentator on German television had said: "We have just heard the next President of the United States...and the future President of the World." My friend felt that Obama bore an uncanny resemblance to the fictional character of the President in my novel Father Elijah. I have received several other letters saying the same thing and asking what I thought about it.
From my own reading of Obama's declarations and stated positions, I knew he was an ultra-liberal, a social revolutionary with visionary pretensions. But the Antichrist? No, not possible, I thought. I felt that he was too shallow a man to be the Son of Perdition, the Man of Sin, the Beast of the Book of Revelation. And I still think so. Obama is a crowd-pleaser with just the right ethos of idealistic crusader. That the crusade and the banners under which it marches are evil does not automatically prove that he is the Antichrist.
But now that I have seen the video of the Berlin speech I think there is more here than meets the eye. He is indeed a powerful manipulator of crowds, even as he appears ever so humble and wholesomely charming. I doubt that he is the long-prophesied ruler of the world, but I also believe that he is a carrier of a deadly moral virus, indeed a kind of anti-apostle spreading concepts and agendas that are not only anti-Christ but anti-human as well. In this sense he is of the spirit of Antichrist (perhaps without knowing it), and probably is one of several key figures in the world who (knowingly or unknowingly) will be instrumental in ushering in the time of great trial for the Church under its last and worst persecution, amidst the numerous other tribulations prophesied in the books of Daniel and Revelation, and letters of St Paul, St. John, and St. Peter.
Of course the mystique that has grown up around him is endlessly reinforced by the liberal media, which presents him to us as a high-minded humanist, a kind of secular messiah (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 675). Yet when all the rhetoric is boiled down to its substance, the man is advocating unlimited state-sanctioned murder, and compounds it by indulging in habitual falsehood. He is well accustomed to playing loose with the truth whenever it is expedient for him to do so; or else he is the victim of the largest memory lapses in recorded history; or perhaps he is just not careful about how he expresses things——a blurring or selectivity regarding facts for the purpose of aggrandizing his public image. There is a controversy currently raging in the (admittedly unreliable) forum of the internet, prompted by an African-American talk show host in Los Angeles who listed 39 significant details that Barack Obama claimed were facts about himself, but on further investigation were proved to be simply untrue. There has been some wild-fire debunking of the debunking, and then more counter-debunking, but it remains obvious that forthrightness and clarity are not major concerns in the Obama camp.
What are we to make of a man who has appeared out of semi-obscurity and become, nearly overnight, so very much an idol of the popular imagination? That he intends to become the most effective advocate of murder of the unborn ever seen in America should give us pause. Murder and lies are as old as the lands east of Eden, of course, but when they are charmingly packaged, proposed as reasonable and just policies (with a smile, a resonant voice, and an appealing flash of the eyes), one begins to wonder just what is afoot in the modern age. It brings to mind a passage from the first Act of Shakespeare's Hamlet:
"That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain..."
The line is from a scene where prince Hamlet has just encountered the ghost of his father, who informs his son that he was poisoned by his own brother Claudius (the "smiling, damned villain"), who after murdering him, seized the king's crown and his queen.
Barack Obama is an image-maker, creating his own myth as he goes along. This would be a sad defect in any human being, but it takes on ominous proportions in a person who may become, after November 4th, one of the most powerful figures in the world. How is it possible that such a tragic turn of events may come about, if indeed a majority of Americans choose to believe the smile and the myth? Why is it that so many people have come to believe that a mirage is reality, even destiny? Do pro-Obama voters hanker for a world figure who would heal old divisions between races and religions, thus heralding a new age for mankind? During this time of near intolerable tensions, does he appear to be the one who can reconcile Islam and Christianity, Africa and America, occident and orient, black and white, rich and poor? Do they see his racial origins as a symbolic victory over the history of racial oppression? Do they see in him the good-hearted "under-dog", the gutsy street fighter who agitates for the rights of the "little guy," whose meteoric rise to a position of maximum influence represents themselves enthroned at last in the high seat of power? Is this why they ignore his every grave fault and hungrily consume his vague idealist platitudes as if these were a kind of new gospel for the third millennium? Our hero. Our visionary. Our Great Friend and spokesman in the forum of the world?
Clearly, contemporary man needs heroes. But why not choose a genuine one, why not look a little deeper and work a little harder to find a man of courage and principle, and if it helps in the historical healing process, why not a very different kind of black man, say a person like Alan Keyes, a scholar, former ambassador, experienced in different levels of government, and (it might be added) an African-American married to a woman from India. Moreover, he is a devout Catholic who believes in moral absolutes and has amply proved that he will stand firm to defend them regardless of the cost to his own career. He knows that kings and presidents cannot usurp the natural law, the moral order of the universe, without bringing down judgment upon their nations. But it need not be Keyes. It might be any number of other men and women of clear thought and clear principle. Surely there are "Ten Just Men" still out there somewhere in America. So why Obama? And why does he rise and rise as his mouth smiles and smiles, exuding sincerity as he speaks lies and death?
And why, most horribly, most shamefully, are so many Christians of malformed or unformed conscience supporting him? Is it because they have never been clearly instructed in the truth, never understood the foundation upon which the moral cosmos is built? Is morality for them merely another system of abstract "values" in a crowded playing field of such systems, from which one may pick and choose? In the case of Catholics, for example, have they been blinded by a diet of theological nuances and deadly little loopholes offered to them by the committees of national episcopal conferences — committees that have absolutely no authority over Catholics, yet which are widely revered as a kind of alternative Magisterium? Have they been deadened by a habitual dismissing or dissembling of the solid teaching given to them by the universal Church under Peter? Have they grown accustomed to listening to opinion shapers who tell them that certain excellent apostolic Bishops in America who teach the truth without compromise are merely hidebound reactionaries, moralistic extremists, contemporary manifestations of those old boogymen who still haunt the American psyche — the Chillingworths and Dimmesdales and the judges in The Scarlet Letter? And so it goes, this over-reaction to Puritanism played out over centuries, an over-reaction that breeds tragedies a thousand times worse than Salem's. Lies compounding on lies, and it all floats on an ocean of spilled innocent blood. And who can gaze at that ocean (or be splashed by it) without coming to a radical choice: One either turns away into a deeper state of denial, or one turns heart and mind toward the splendor of Truth, and changes one's life accordingly.
Is this why many of our Catholic people have become impulse-driven impressionists? Of course, the blindness is not due to the failure of pastors alone. The Ministry of Disinformation (by which I mean most modern media) has played a major role. There is also the erosion of truth in the education systems, combined with the gradual confusion and weakening of conscience through our addiction to the "soma" drugs supplied by the entertainment industry. Other factors may be the war in Iraq, or Republican economics, or the Bush administration, or the structure of Capitalism itself, or any number of prudential questions in the sociopolitical order, all of which are presently tangled nests of moral dilemma. But why do they not see that these questions are secondary to the fundamental issue of life itself? Why would they replace one reigning oligarchy with another kind of oligarchy — moreover, one that would kill vast numbers of its own citizens?
"I call on heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live...." (Deuteronomy 30:19)
May God bless and guide you,
in Jesus our Saviour,
with prayers and fasting,
Michael O'Brien
PS: For those interested in a concise examination of the moral parameters of voting in the forthcoming election, I urge you to read an excellent article by Dr. Mark Miravalle, professor of Theology at Franciscan University, Steubenville, available at the following link: http://www.motherofallpeoples.com/index.php?option=com_conte...
Enjoy!
Michael O'Brien Newsletter Regarding Barack Obama and the Question of the Anti-Christ
All Saints Day, 1 November 2008
Dear Friends,
From just north of the border, we Canadians, like other people throughout the world, are observing and praying for the coming federal election in the United States of America. I would prefer to keep private my counsel about political choices, because it is not my country. However, I am receiving letters from American subscribers and visitors to my studio website asking me some rather surprising questions about Barack Obama, related to one of my novels.
During the past year I have read a number of his pronouncements, and saw the smoke and mirrors beneath the rhetoric, but couldn't understand why everyone south of the border (the other south of the border, the 49th parallel) was getting so excited about him, both pro and con. Then a few weeks ago a German friend called me immediately after Obama's speech in Berlin, to say that the presidential candidate had mesmerized the crowds, and that a commentator on German television had said: "We have just heard the next President of the United States...and the future President of the World." My friend felt that Obama bore an uncanny resemblance to the fictional character of the President in my novel Father Elijah. I have received several other letters saying the same thing and asking what I thought about it.
From my own reading of Obama's declarations and stated positions, I knew he was an ultra-liberal, a social revolutionary with visionary pretensions. But the Antichrist? No, not possible, I thought. I felt that he was too shallow a man to be the Son of Perdition, the Man of Sin, the Beast of the Book of Revelation. And I still think so. Obama is a crowd-pleaser with just the right ethos of idealistic crusader. That the crusade and the banners under which it marches are evil does not automatically prove that he is the Antichrist.
But now that I have seen the video of the Berlin speech I think there is more here than meets the eye. He is indeed a powerful manipulator of crowds, even as he appears ever so humble and wholesomely charming. I doubt that he is the long-prophesied ruler of the world, but I also believe that he is a carrier of a deadly moral virus, indeed a kind of anti-apostle spreading concepts and agendas that are not only anti-Christ but anti-human as well. In this sense he is of the spirit of Antichrist (perhaps without knowing it), and probably is one of several key figures in the world who (knowingly or unknowingly) will be instrumental in ushering in the time of great trial for the Church under its last and worst persecution, amidst the numerous other tribulations prophesied in the books of Daniel and Revelation, and letters of St Paul, St. John, and St. Peter.
Of course the mystique that has grown up around him is endlessly reinforced by the liberal media, which presents him to us as a high-minded humanist, a kind of secular messiah (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 675). Yet when all the rhetoric is boiled down to its substance, the man is advocating unlimited state-sanctioned murder, and compounds it by indulging in habitual falsehood. He is well accustomed to playing loose with the truth whenever it is expedient for him to do so; or else he is the victim of the largest memory lapses in recorded history; or perhaps he is just not careful about how he expresses things——a blurring or selectivity regarding facts for the purpose of aggrandizing his public image. There is a controversy currently raging in the (admittedly unreliable) forum of the internet, prompted by an African-American talk show host in Los Angeles who listed 39 significant details that Barack Obama claimed were facts about himself, but on further investigation were proved to be simply untrue. There has been some wild-fire debunking of the debunking, and then more counter-debunking, but it remains obvious that forthrightness and clarity are not major concerns in the Obama camp.
What are we to make of a man who has appeared out of semi-obscurity and become, nearly overnight, so very much an idol of the popular imagination? That he intends to become the most effective advocate of murder of the unborn ever seen in America should give us pause. Murder and lies are as old as the lands east of Eden, of course, but when they are charmingly packaged, proposed as reasonable and just policies (with a smile, a resonant voice, and an appealing flash of the eyes), one begins to wonder just what is afoot in the modern age. It brings to mind a passage from the first Act of Shakespeare's Hamlet:
"That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain..."
The line is from a scene where prince Hamlet has just encountered the ghost of his father, who informs his son that he was poisoned by his own brother Claudius (the "smiling, damned villain"), who after murdering him, seized the king's crown and his queen.
Barack Obama is an image-maker, creating his own myth as he goes along. This would be a sad defect in any human being, but it takes on ominous proportions in a person who may become, after November 4th, one of the most powerful figures in the world. How is it possible that such a tragic turn of events may come about, if indeed a majority of Americans choose to believe the smile and the myth? Why is it that so many people have come to believe that a mirage is reality, even destiny? Do pro-Obama voters hanker for a world figure who would heal old divisions between races and religions, thus heralding a new age for mankind? During this time of near intolerable tensions, does he appear to be the one who can reconcile Islam and Christianity, Africa and America, occident and orient, black and white, rich and poor? Do they see his racial origins as a symbolic victory over the history of racial oppression? Do they see in him the good-hearted "under-dog", the gutsy street fighter who agitates for the rights of the "little guy," whose meteoric rise to a position of maximum influence represents themselves enthroned at last in the high seat of power? Is this why they ignore his every grave fault and hungrily consume his vague idealist platitudes as if these were a kind of new gospel for the third millennium? Our hero. Our visionary. Our Great Friend and spokesman in the forum of the world?
Clearly, contemporary man needs heroes. But why not choose a genuine one, why not look a little deeper and work a little harder to find a man of courage and principle, and if it helps in the historical healing process, why not a very different kind of black man, say a person like Alan Keyes, a scholar, former ambassador, experienced in different levels of government, and (it might be added) an African-American married to a woman from India. Moreover, he is a devout Catholic who believes in moral absolutes and has amply proved that he will stand firm to defend them regardless of the cost to his own career. He knows that kings and presidents cannot usurp the natural law, the moral order of the universe, without bringing down judgment upon their nations. But it need not be Keyes. It might be any number of other men and women of clear thought and clear principle. Surely there are "Ten Just Men" still out there somewhere in America. So why Obama? And why does he rise and rise as his mouth smiles and smiles, exuding sincerity as he speaks lies and death?
And why, most horribly, most shamefully, are so many Christians of malformed or unformed conscience supporting him? Is it because they have never been clearly instructed in the truth, never understood the foundation upon which the moral cosmos is built? Is morality for them merely another system of abstract "values" in a crowded playing field of such systems, from which one may pick and choose? In the case of Catholics, for example, have they been blinded by a diet of theological nuances and deadly little loopholes offered to them by the committees of national episcopal conferences — committees that have absolutely no authority over Catholics, yet which are widely revered as a kind of alternative Magisterium? Have they been deadened by a habitual dismissing or dissembling of the solid teaching given to them by the universal Church under Peter? Have they grown accustomed to listening to opinion shapers who tell them that certain excellent apostolic Bishops in America who teach the truth without compromise are merely hidebound reactionaries, moralistic extremists, contemporary manifestations of those old boogymen who still haunt the American psyche — the Chillingworths and Dimmesdales and the judges in The Scarlet Letter? And so it goes, this over-reaction to Puritanism played out over centuries, an over-reaction that breeds tragedies a thousand times worse than Salem's. Lies compounding on lies, and it all floats on an ocean of spilled innocent blood. And who can gaze at that ocean (or be splashed by it) without coming to a radical choice: One either turns away into a deeper state of denial, or one turns heart and mind toward the splendor of Truth, and changes one's life accordingly.
Is this why many of our Catholic people have become impulse-driven impressionists? Of course, the blindness is not due to the failure of pastors alone. The Ministry of Disinformation (by which I mean most modern media) has played a major role. There is also the erosion of truth in the education systems, combined with the gradual confusion and weakening of conscience through our addiction to the "soma" drugs supplied by the entertainment industry. Other factors may be the war in Iraq, or Republican economics, or the Bush administration, or the structure of Capitalism itself, or any number of prudential questions in the sociopolitical order, all of which are presently tangled nests of moral dilemma. But why do they not see that these questions are secondary to the fundamental issue of life itself? Why would they replace one reigning oligarchy with another kind of oligarchy — moreover, one that would kill vast numbers of its own citizens?
"I call on heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live...." (Deuteronomy 30:19)
May God bless and guide you,
in Jesus our Saviour,
with prayers and fasting,
Michael O'Brien
PS: For those interested in a concise examination of the moral parameters of voting in the forthcoming election, I urge you to read an excellent article by Dr. Mark Miravalle, professor of Theology at Franciscan University, Steubenville, available at the following link: http://www.motherofallpeoples.com/index.php?option=com_conte...
Thursday, July 31, 2008
The Dairy Police
I'd like to read this one next. I wonder why they feel the need to enforce laws about raw milk and such? Yes, people get sick from it sometimes. That is what a disclaimer is for, right? I mean, why not sell it if someone wants to buy it and doesn't mind the risks? We sure have some weird laws. They make sense on a large scale, but not on a family farm.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
A good book to buy
This lady's blog gives me so many smiles. She has six kids and she does send them to school, and she has kids who do lots of strange things. She also has the guts to put her kids' videos of their strange behavior on her blog and youtube. I know I will probably buy her book, which comes out rather soon.
Honey? Are you reading this? I want this one preordered, along with Dance with Dragons, coming out just before my birthday. Here they are. Yup, I like my variety.
Drat. Ok, never mind, haven't figured out this error.
Look for "Because I Said So" by Dawn Meehan and "Dance With Dragons" by George RR Martin. Look them up on Amazon! I am so excited. So many books, only one life!
Honey? Are you reading this? I want this one preordered, along with Dance with Dragons, coming out just before my birthday. Here they are. Yup, I like my variety.
Drat. Ok, never mind, haven't figured out this error.
Look for "Because I Said So" by Dawn Meehan and "Dance With Dragons" by George RR Martin. Look them up on Amazon! I am so excited. So many books, only one life!
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