"Today, Ohio Right to Life released a statement in response to Columbus City Council’s recently approved ordinance no. 2215-2022. The ordinance was approved on July 25th, 2022, and is one of several ordinances which compose the city council’s larger initiative to protect so-called "reproductive healthcare" for pregnant women. Ordinance no. 2215-2022 authorizes a partnership with Pro-Choice Ohio to investigate the medical legitimacy of Crisis Pregnancy Centers. The ordinance states that this attack will be funded by $26,500 of taxpayer funds, taken from the Neighborhood Initiative subfund.
“I have personally worked with dozens of pregnancy centers across the state of Ohio during my years of pro-life work. The individuals who work at these pregnancy centers are some of the most kind, caring, competent, and loving individuals that you could encounter,” says Ohio Right to Life's Executive Director Peter Range. He continued, “I invite each city council member in the state of Ohio to visit with me their local pregnancy centers so they can see firsthand the amazing work they are doing for mothers, fathers, and babies in need.”
Ohio Right to Life's Director of Communications Elizabeth Whitmarsh strongly condemned the ordinance, stating “the targeting of pregnancy resource centers will put vulnerable women at risk and strip them of the resources they need on a day-to-day basis.” She went on to say, “the obvious truth here is that the anti-life activists do not care about women in need, and in fact, they are willing to put them at risk of survival if it means they can silence pro-life voices.” Peter Range shared similar sentiments: “The fact that these pregnancy centers are under attack is a clear illustration the left is not focused on women’s health, but just expanding abortion.” "
Thursday, July 28, 2022
Too late for these memories?
I received a notice (in a newsletter) from my alma mater (University of Illinois).
Calling all Former Library Student Employees
Did you work for the Library when you were a student at Illinois? We want to hear from you! Share a favorite memory, why you loved working for the Library, or how the Library helped shape your career path. You may be featured in an upcoming issue of the Library's award-winning Friendscript newsletter.
Fill out this short survey here.
I've been blogging for almost 20 years, (2003) but I can't recall I ever wrote down any memories of being a student employee in the 50s (as an undergrad) and 60s (graduate student) at the University of Illinois Library.Tuesday, July 26, 2022
Med students walk out at the University of Michigan
Medical students at the University of Michigan walked out of their White Coat Ceremony in protest Sunday after Dr. Kristin Collier, who wasn't speaking about abortion, was introduced; her views are known. She has referred to abortion as violence, and it is. She's referred to the unborn as her prenatal sisters, and they are. But let's look at the overprivileged, highly educated students who walked out. First they'd petitioned to stop her appearance, and when they didn't get their way, they stamped their big biased feet and walked out. They can't dare to have their minds warped by someone with a different view point--like the truth about life.
Is that how they will treat patients who want to carry to term but the doctor "knows best" and violates not just their oath, but human decency? Will they refuse to treat blacks or trans people if they don't like their politics? What about those disabled from military injuries if they (the doctors) didn't like the war?
I don't think these people are mature enough to have this level of responsibility, but really I don't know where they could go where it is acceptable to be open to views other than your own bubble. If this isn't happening at your local/state university, it's probably because no pro-life people have been hired or promoted.
Is that how they will treat patients who want to carry to term but the doctor "knows best" and violates not just their oath, but human decency? Will they refuse to treat blacks or trans people if they don't like their politics? What about those disabled from military injuries if they (the doctors) didn't like the war?
I don't think these people are mature enough to have this level of responsibility, but really I don't know where they could go where it is acceptable to be open to views other than your own bubble. If this isn't happening at your local/state university, it's probably because no pro-life people have been hired or promoted.
Symphony begins tonight
All of Lakeside looks forward to this. In 2020, we only had small groups playing at the bandstand in the park, and 2021 had a very limited season. Now this announcement:
"Under the direction of Music Director & Conductor Daniel Meyer, the Lakeside Symphony Orchestra (LSO) will open its 59th summer residency in Lakeside at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 26 in Hoover Auditorium.
The LSO, established in 1963, is a celebrated tradition at Lakeside and a key component of our arts programming. More than 80 musicians from across the country are members of the symphony, many of whom have devoted years of service to Lakeside.
This summer brings a series of LSO performances for all ages, seven to be exact, with extraordinarily talented guest artists and new opportunities for audiences to share the love of music and the symphony. There will also be an LSO Brass Quintet Family Concert on Thursday, Aug. 4 and four Pre-Concert Lectures on July 29, Aug. 2, 9 and 12."
BIOGRAPHY | danielmeyerblack (danielmeyermusic.com)
Lakeside Chautauqua names Daniel Meyer new symphony conductor - cleveland.com
Saturday, July 23, 2022
Vitamins for the eyes -- recommended
Yesterday my ophthalmologist, Dr. Rogers, suggested I could benefit from vitamins to slow the progress of macular degeneration. The study is called AREDS 2, so I've looked through a few articles that explain it and which are free to download and print.
Abstract Is There an Optimal Combination of AREDS2 Antioxidants Zeaxanthin, Vitamin E and Vitamin C on Light-Induced Toxicity of Vitamin A Aldehyde to the Retina? - PubMed (nih.gov)"Vitamins C and E and zeaxanthin are components of a supplement tested in a large clinical trial-Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2 (AREDS2)-and it has been demonstrated that they can inhibit the progression of age-related macular degeneration. The aim of this study was to determine the optimal combinations of these antioxidants to prevent the phototoxicity mediated by vitamin A aldehyde (ATR), which can accumulate in photoreceptor outer segments (POS) upon exposure to light."
Abstract The Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2 (AREDS2): Study Design and Baseline Characteristics (AREDS2 Report Number 1) - PMC (nih.gov)
Purpose
The Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) demonstrated beneficial effects of oral supplementation with antioxidant vitamins and minerals on the development of advanced age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in persons with at least intermediate AMD (bilateral large drusen with or without pigment changes). Observational data suggest that other oral nutrient supplements might further reduce the risk of progression to advanced AMD.
The primary purpose of Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2 (AREDS2) is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of lutein+zeaxanthin (L+Z) and/or omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid (LCPUFA) supplementation in reducing the risk of developing advanced AMD. The study will also assess the reduction in zinc and the omission of beta-carotene from original AREDS formulation.
We are all paying for transgender surgery through Medicaid
Medicaid represents $1 out of every $6 spent on health care in the US and is the major source of financing for states to provide coverage to meet the health and long-term needs of their low-income residents. The Medicaid program is jointly funded by states and the federal government. Now that states are succumbing to pressure from leftist ideology groups to obscure the truth known from the beginning of time by pagan tribes, rampaging warlords, Greek philosophers, Roman Caesars and thousands of years of the Judeo-Christian traditions with sacred texts (including Bill Clinton and Barack Obama), trans-intervention (called GAHT and GAS) will be covered by Medicaid.
“Gender-affirming surgeries are safe, effective, and medically necessary,” says the ACLU, but in fact they aren't any of those. Certainly not safe or effective when one considers the long term (untested) results of a life time of mental confusion and hormones foisted on people already with high suicide rates. But they want us to pay for their crimes in the medical, legal, non-profit (obviously very well funded) and entertainment fields. They want the government to pay for amputating non-diseased penises, testicles and breasts, and then they want all of us to not only pay for it, but to agree it's right, change our language and submit to being vilified if we speak the definition of a real woman.
Patrick W. Lappert, MD: "Self-identified transgender persons are a small but apparently growing population of persons who experience a severe dissonance between their sex (male or female) and their interior sense of themselves as men or women. It is a condition that is associated with a high rate of self-harming behavior, including alcohol abuse, drug abuse, sexual abuse, prostitution, and suicide. It is a condition that demands merciful care in every regard.
Care for transgender persons is presently being compromised by a distortion in our understanding of the human person. Whereas in times past the patient was seen as an intrinsic unity of body and spirit, today we are seeing large segments of the medical community tacitly accepting an understanding of the human person as a kind of spirit creature that may or may not be inhabiting the correct body." Are Man and Woman Interchangeable? – St. Paul Center (stpaulcenter.com)
I only mention Clinton and Obama because Bill admired women and knew the difference, and Obama was a great family man and even in his campaign said marriage was between a man and women until the swamp issued directives about rest rooms during his term, so we can date this official, tax paid insanity to about 2012, a little recent in the history of mankind's approval.
“Gender-affirming surgeries are safe, effective, and medically necessary,” says the ACLU, but in fact they aren't any of those. Certainly not safe or effective when one considers the long term (untested) results of a life time of mental confusion and hormones foisted on people already with high suicide rates. But they want us to pay for their crimes in the medical, legal, non-profit (obviously very well funded) and entertainment fields. They want the government to pay for amputating non-diseased penises, testicles and breasts, and then they want all of us to not only pay for it, but to agree it's right, change our language and submit to being vilified if we speak the definition of a real woman.
Patrick W. Lappert, MD: "Self-identified transgender persons are a small but apparently growing population of persons who experience a severe dissonance between their sex (male or female) and their interior sense of themselves as men or women. It is a condition that is associated with a high rate of self-harming behavior, including alcohol abuse, drug abuse, sexual abuse, prostitution, and suicide. It is a condition that demands merciful care in every regard.
Care for transgender persons is presently being compromised by a distortion in our understanding of the human person. Whereas in times past the patient was seen as an intrinsic unity of body and spirit, today we are seeing large segments of the medical community tacitly accepting an understanding of the human person as a kind of spirit creature that may or may not be inhabiting the correct body." Are Man and Woman Interchangeable? – St. Paul Center (stpaulcenter.com)
I only mention Clinton and Obama because Bill admired women and knew the difference, and Obama was a great family man and even in his campaign said marriage was between a man and women until the swamp issued directives about rest rooms during his term, so we can date this official, tax paid insanity to about 2012, a little recent in the history of mankind's approval.
Thursday, July 21, 2022
Baby in womb surgery photo
Republican Rep. Gary Palmer of Alabama briefly showed a photograph of a preborn child at a House subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, but Chairwoman Diana DeGette, D-CO, immediately gaveled him and demanded the picture be taken down. It was a photograph of a preborn child reaching out from his mother’s womb during a surgery, and clasping the doctor’s finger. The surgery was a success, and that child is now in his twenties."
It was not a photo of abortion, it was a photo of a live baby and life saving medical help, high tech, correcting spina bifida. I thought Democrats loved that. Science. But because it proves them wrong, this photo infuriates Democrats and pro-abortion forces.
The baby was anesthetized for the surgery, so technically he didn't grab the finger. Makes no difference. This is a living child.
It was not a photo of abortion, it was a photo of a live baby and life saving medical help, high tech, correcting spina bifida. I thought Democrats loved that. Science. But because it proves them wrong, this photo infuriates Democrats and pro-abortion forces.
The baby was anesthetized for the surgery, so technically he didn't grab the finger. Makes no difference. This is a living child.
Wednesday, July 20, 2022
Prepare yourselves for Biden's Climate emergency
Prepare for the Climate Emergency--Biden could shut you down--take your fuel, your money, your future, and Democrats will fall for it. Even some Republicans are dumb enough to fall for it. All to save something 2 centuries from now, they don't know what, and destroy what we have today. People who can't figure out men don't have babies are telling you to be afraid of climate models.
I just did an internet search--something really simple about when Ohio was under a glacier and it melted. I had to go through about 100 entries of scare stories that had nothing to do with the subject to find this:
"When the earliest ice sheets penetrated Ohio they dramatically changed drainage patterns in the state. The Erigans River was destroyed and the Teays River was dammed in southern Ohio. A large, ice-dammed lake, Lake Tight, formed in the valleys of southern Ohio, and adjacent Kentucky and West Virginia. Eventually, the lake spilled over low divides and cut new channels. This was the beginning of the creation of the Ohio River. The deep valleys of the Teays River and its tributaries were filled with sediment as they were overridden by the glacier. In some places in western Ohio the buried valley of the Teays River is more than 400 feet deep but no hint of it is visible on the flat surface of the landscape.
The advance of the Illinoian glacier 300,000 years ago continued the modification of the Ohio landscape, eroding bedrock and older sediments and depositing sediment as it melted. This glacier advanced the farthest south of any of the glaciations in Ohio. Deeply weathered Illinoian deposits are present in southwestern Ohio and in a narrow band through east-central Ohio.
The most recent and best preserved glacial deposits are from the Wisconsinan glaciation. This glacier entered Ohio about 24,000 years ago and was gone from the state by 14,000 years ago." . . .
I just did an internet search--something really simple about when Ohio was under a glacier and it melted. I had to go through about 100 entries of scare stories that had nothing to do with the subject to find this:
"When the earliest ice sheets penetrated Ohio they dramatically changed drainage patterns in the state. The Erigans River was destroyed and the Teays River was dammed in southern Ohio. A large, ice-dammed lake, Lake Tight, formed in the valleys of southern Ohio, and adjacent Kentucky and West Virginia. Eventually, the lake spilled over low divides and cut new channels. This was the beginning of the creation of the Ohio River. The deep valleys of the Teays River and its tributaries were filled with sediment as they were overridden by the glacier. In some places in western Ohio the buried valley of the Teays River is more than 400 feet deep but no hint of it is visible on the flat surface of the landscape.
The advance of the Illinoian glacier 300,000 years ago continued the modification of the Ohio landscape, eroding bedrock and older sediments and depositing sediment as it melted. This glacier advanced the farthest south of any of the glaciations in Ohio. Deeply weathered Illinoian deposits are present in southwestern Ohio and in a narrow band through east-central Ohio.
The most recent and best preserved glacial deposits are from the Wisconsinan glaciation. This glacier entered Ohio about 24,000 years ago and was gone from the state by 14,000 years ago." . . .
Monday, July 18, 2022
Christians who voted for Biden
If you are a Christian who voted for Biden, remember he doesn't use the words safeguard, protect, promote or support when it comes to children in the womb. He doesn't now and never has asked for swift and coordinated action at the border to keep drugs away from your children. When has he ever established an "interagency" gender policy to protect children from the misinformation and lies about their sexuality? Where is the EO for protection of crisis pregnancy centers now under attack by abortion terrorists?
The nightmare is not over
"The nightmare is over. In his masterful opinion for the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Samuel Alito consigned the constitutional right of abortion to the ash heap of history. Alito’s criticisms of Justice Harry Blackmun’s opinion in Roe v. Wade are deep and cutting — and entirely justified. Roe was, Alito wrote, “egregiously wrong from the start.” It was “on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided.” " National Catholic Register, June 24.
Most of this is true, and I agree, except the nightmare IS NOT OVER; it's just begun no matter where you are on the pro-life continuum. From conception to dementia and physical collapse in old age, people will need to be thinking through what they believe about God, natural rights, the Constitution, state laws, the minority opinions, investments in corporations supporting abortion for employees, medical and obstetric training for doctors and nurses in states that criminalize abortions, financial and emotional support for women who struggle with a decision, talking to neighbors, relatives and friends about touchy topics, what our children are taught about sex and biology in school and what will be preached and taught in our churches. Jesus' command to love our neighbors is being challenged by society at so many levels. Are we prepared?
In New York, there's nothing to stop an abortion/killing up to the moment of birth, and ground work is in place to allow infanticide for some years after birth. That's very different than Ohio's heartbeat law, or Mississippi's law which bans abortions based on the sex, race, or genetic abnormality of the fetus. And then there's all the issues about language with people being unable to identify a woman, or which words to use about "life" and your employer vested with the power to destroy your career if you can't subscribe to the thought control of management or the university administration.
The nightmare is not over.
Most of this is true, and I agree, except the nightmare IS NOT OVER; it's just begun no matter where you are on the pro-life continuum. From conception to dementia and physical collapse in old age, people will need to be thinking through what they believe about God, natural rights, the Constitution, state laws, the minority opinions, investments in corporations supporting abortion for employees, medical and obstetric training for doctors and nurses in states that criminalize abortions, financial and emotional support for women who struggle with a decision, talking to neighbors, relatives and friends about touchy topics, what our children are taught about sex and biology in school and what will be preached and taught in our churches. Jesus' command to love our neighbors is being challenged by society at so many levels. Are we prepared?
In New York, there's nothing to stop an abortion/killing up to the moment of birth, and ground work is in place to allow infanticide for some years after birth. That's very different than Ohio's heartbeat law, or Mississippi's law which bans abortions based on the sex, race, or genetic abnormality of the fetus. And then there's all the issues about language with people being unable to identify a woman, or which words to use about "life" and your employer vested with the power to destroy your career if you can't subscribe to the thought control of management or the university administration.
The nightmare is not over.
Saturday, July 16, 2022
Peter Noone, Herman's Hermits at Lakeside
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg-ChNN8yso
We enjoyed Herman's Hermits--Peter Noone--and it was a great evening, Saturday June 16. All the baby boomers in the audience at Hoover Auditorium were jamming. Our neighbors (about 73-74) brought their 10 year old granddaughter, but she was playing games on her phone. It's happy music, with a lot of audience participation. Since this video is just a few months old, I think it represents him well.
Women on a bus in 1957
"On a recent trip to visit family, I found myself frequently travelling alone on public transportation. As a female, out of my usual surroundings, I always looked for the safest place to sit. Where might I be safe on this subway, in this train, on this bus? Is there anywhere safe anymore?
Over and again, I found myself seeking out the nearest mother with a child in a stroller in order to seat myself near them. Did that mother have a special forcefield around her? Why did I gravitate to the mother with the child as the safest haven? Because I realized that this mother had made a conscious decision to stand on the front lines." https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2022/07/16/we-are-the-front-lines/?
That's a quote from an article about how Christians are on the front lines in the culture wars. However, for me, I recall an exact incident like this in June 1957 that happened to me. My parents had taken me to the bus stop in Dixon, Illinois, to begin a very long trip by myself at 17 to Fresno, California for a summer term in Brethren Volunteer Service. I've written about it at this blog with photos. https://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/search/label/Fresno I certainly didn't have experience at 17 of traveling alone, but I looked for the first adult woman with children (she had 3) I spotted on the bus and sat with her. She couldn't have been more than 20 herself and had an Appalachian accent. I ended up being her babysitter half way across the country, sitting with the little girl and telling her stories while I combed her wispy hair, stories my mother had told me to keep me quiet about critters who snarl the hair of little girls. I think I also used my own money to buy her snacks because her mother didn't get off the bus when we took meal breaks. I felt safer, and the mother was certainly trusting, as I took the little daughter into the rest room, helped her with the toilet and cleaned her up while mommy tended to the boys (the children all had the strong odor of unwashed clothing and bodies).
Maybe it's instinct for women to seek each other for safety. With the culture wars of today, who can you trust?
Over and again, I found myself seeking out the nearest mother with a child in a stroller in order to seat myself near them. Did that mother have a special forcefield around her? Why did I gravitate to the mother with the child as the safest haven? Because I realized that this mother had made a conscious decision to stand on the front lines." https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2022/07/16/we-are-the-front-lines/?
That's a quote from an article about how Christians are on the front lines in the culture wars. However, for me, I recall an exact incident like this in June 1957 that happened to me. My parents had taken me to the bus stop in Dixon, Illinois, to begin a very long trip by myself at 17 to Fresno, California for a summer term in Brethren Volunteer Service. I've written about it at this blog with photos. https://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/search/label/Fresno I certainly didn't have experience at 17 of traveling alone, but I looked for the first adult woman with children (she had 3) I spotted on the bus and sat with her. She couldn't have been more than 20 herself and had an Appalachian accent. I ended up being her babysitter half way across the country, sitting with the little girl and telling her stories while I combed her wispy hair, stories my mother had told me to keep me quiet about critters who snarl the hair of little girls. I think I also used my own money to buy her snacks because her mother didn't get off the bus when we took meal breaks. I felt safer, and the mother was certainly trusting, as I took the little daughter into the rest room, helped her with the toilet and cleaned her up while mommy tended to the boys (the children all had the strong odor of unwashed clothing and bodies).
Maybe it's instinct for women to seek each other for safety. With the culture wars of today, who can you trust?
Friday, July 15, 2022
Losing our Linden (Basswood or Tilia Americana)
The linden, in the fervors of July,
Hums with a louder concert. When the wind
Sweeps the broad forest in its summer prime,
As when some master-hand exulting sweeps
The keys of some great organ, ye give forth
The music of the woodland depths, a hymn
Of gladness and of thanks.
William Cullen Bryant
Hums with a louder concert. When the wind
Sweeps the broad forest in its summer prime,
As when some master-hand exulting sweeps
The keys of some great organ, ye give forth
The music of the woodland depths, a hymn
Of gladness and of thanks.
William Cullen Bryant
It has been providing shade here for 90 to 100 years, our neighbor Bill Dudrow says. About 20 years ago a large section fell on the deck, but after having it trimmed (actually major surgery) we were told it was healthy although somewhat deformed. Then this summer we noticed a large area of decay developing. The tree man came out yesterday and told us the old damaged trunk was splitting and that was the cause of the decay at the bottom. It will have to come down. Sigh.
The Linden range extends from New Brunswick south to Georgia, and west to Nebraska and Texas. It is a soft wood, and I hear it's good for carving and cabinets. It has heart shaped leaves and early in the summer develops clusters of blossom-buds in greenish-yellow, which bees love, and the deck requires constant sweeping.
Information from "Our Trees: How to know them" by Arthur I. Emerson. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 5th ed., 1936.
Nap study mentioned by John Ed Mathison, Got a Minute
This study was mentioned in John Ed Mathison's "Got a Minute," 325 daily meditations. He's a retired Methodist pastor who was at Lakeside in 2021, and I attended his morning sermons. I bought this little book and have been using it for the opening meditations at the Lakeside Women's Club which meets at 1:30 on Tuesday. I try to pick something that's appropriate for the day's program. Any program about Lakeside would good for a study on napping. I see a lot of it-- on the hotel porch, on park benches, on towels in the sun and I have a nap almost every day.
John Ed says on p. 326, "a brief nap is healthy in releasing stress. The Bible teaches about stress, anxiety, and good health. I challenge you to put a 5 minute nap together with a reflection on what the Bible teaches. It might be off the chart how much healthier you could be!"
John Ed usually doesn't give complete citations--after all, these meditations are on phone apps or radio announcements, and I like to think they are reaching people that churches don't, or someone who maybe has a church family but needs a little boost. That's what librarians are for--we are finders so you can be keepers. That's why I give you the link to the research. And a copy of a painting I did years ago of a napper on the porch of Hotel Lakeside.
Thursday, July 14, 2022
More from the archives--love stories
I used to write short, short love stories about people in the coffee shop. Reread a few today. It was fun. I stopped going out for coffee in 2015. Saved a lot of money.
I never intended to be a writer, but have been doing it since I was a child. In college I "majored" in other things, although nothing that pays well, like library science. In a blog in 2008 I was writing about two of my favorite topics--food and money.
That said, if I thought my kids needed baked snacks (they were deprived and got raw sliced veggies and fruits) that weren't full of chemicals, sugar and salt, I'd keep an eye on this lady. Food Babe. She's very pretty and Hawaiian. Homemade Goldfish Crackers With Organic Ingredients (foodbabe.com) She must be OK because there are other web sites set up to attack her.
"In the early 1980s I was writing about food budgets, coupons, sweepstakes, and other ways to play with your food, just as I do today in my blog, but using an electric typewriter, a bottle of white-out, research in the OSU Agriculture Library, and a photocopy machine to issue my own newsletter, "No Free Lunch." I was interviewed on a local TV talk show, spoke to women's book clubs, a faculty lunch group at OSU, and I was featured in the local suburban newspaper. However, because my theme was in some ways anti-business and chiding the consumer for poor planning, I was not in great demand as a speaker or writer. You can't tell business that their methods are suspect and consumers that they are not behaving rationally and expect to be popular!
I was just as opinionated then as a liberal Democrat as I am today as a conservative Republican. I wrote a lot about how government and food conglomerates worked together to confuse or hurt the consumer and put the local food companies at a disadvantage (and I hadn't heard of a Wal-Mart). I was really hard on "food writers" in the magazines who always encouraged coupons and prepared foods. Actually, I still feel that way, but now wonder why Democrats continue to lull voters into thinking even more government control of their lives and wallets is beneficial. And I see how increased regulation of business hurts the little guy, and especially the poor."
Based on Biden's fuel policies, we'll probably be lucky to have food on the shelves to buy, but if you're concerned about inflation, you can still save a bundle by contributing your own labor, just as I wrote in 1981. These days, you'd also save a lot by discontinuing take-outs or eating out with your family. Even for us as a couple eliminating our Friday night date as we did during the Covid lockdowns saved us about $200 a month.
That said, if I thought my kids needed baked snacks (they were deprived and got raw sliced veggies and fruits) that weren't full of chemicals, sugar and salt, I'd keep an eye on this lady. Food Babe. She's very pretty and Hawaiian. Homemade Goldfish Crackers With Organic Ingredients (foodbabe.com) She must be OK because there are other web sites set up to attack her.
St. Ignatius of Loyola -- Pray as you go
https://pray-as-you-go.org/player/2022-07-14
Open any website or book or scripture for the Christian, and you'll find something about poverty, environment, sex discrimination, wealth gap and race. Since that's also the constant drum beat of the secular media, academic research and pagans, it falls flat--it is so mundane and nagging. Our sins most flagrant yet important to address according to Jesus are those closest, like members of our family or church or workplace. It's the commandment from both the Old and New Testaments--love neighbor as self. That said, there are so many sources to remind us of the horizontal dimensions of the cross. This link is to Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises. He lived in the 16th century and developed a plan to help focus on the gospel. Others carry on his work. This is just one of the first I came across in an internet search.
"Pray as you can, not as you can't." Additional links at this site on the left of your screen, some with soothing music and voices. Some with "examen" prayer opportunities for beginning of day, end of day, end of week,
And if you carry a phone with you (I don't, but tried it after downloading the app), there's a link for walking with meditation. https://pray-as-you-go.org/series/20-walking-with-god with either male or female voice. About 40 minutes. I haven't tried this--I'd be so distracted by a squirrel or fairy garden or piece of trash carelessly thrown from a passing car. I used the original meditation noted at the beginning here, rather than the walking one.
Ignatius on gratitude
Is there a distinctly Ignatian understanding of gratitude?In the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola, gratitude is not just beneficial to us, it is the only logical response to the grace of God.
There is a logic of gratitude that grows through the Exercises, a dynamic of grace building upon grace. Ignatius does not begin the Exercises with his great call to trait gratitude, the Contemplation to Attain Love – he ends with it. First, we need to see clearly and in true perspective. We begin by seeing ourselves in the context of creation, of the Fall, and of the decision by the Trinity to enter into our ensnared world and set it free. We then walk with Jesus step by step, through birth, life, agony, death and resurrection. The daily drip-feeding of state gratitude with the Examen culminates in the trait gratitude of the Contemplation to Attain Love. So gratitude is the fruit of all that we have experienced. We do not create it; it is brought to birth through our encounter with Jesus. We also do not force it. Ignatius urges us throughout the Exercises to be honest about our desires and our responses. He notes that we do not always desire the best, and that sometimes we need to pray for the desire for the desire. Tell the truth, and then pray for the grace you need: this is the process. Gratitude is perspective. When I see myself contextualised in the whole of salvation history, my response will be ‘the cry of wonder’. There is a natural welling-up of gratitude and love, which is intended to last, to make us people of gratitude at a deeper level.
For all Christians, there is a distinctive quality to their gratitude: belief in God as the giver. In a secular worldview, gratitude may be a response to a series of gifts from random ‘others’. For Christians, our lens is our ongoing relationship with God, the architect of salvation. Our root gratitude is to the One who has given, who gives now, and who can be utterly trusted to keep on giving. As Michael Ivens SJ explains, ‘Gratitude for the past… leads to trust for the future.’[14] Ignatius structures the Contemplation to Attain Love to reflect this past, present and future engagement with grace in my life and in the whole world, coming personally and intentionally from God.
There is broad agreement that gratitude is good for you, and that it’s linked to happiness. But where the science of gratitude seeks to understand gratitude, Ignatius wants us to orient ourselves through it. Where positive psychology notes that ‘gratitude has good outcomes’, for Ignatius it is much stronger than that: more like, ‘if you see God’s world and your life as they really are, gratitude will well up in you’. All agree that ‘if you want to be happy, be grateful’, but for Ignatius it’s fundamental: gratitude is the only disposition that makes sense.
Wednesday, July 13, 2022
Fauci has reappeared
For a long time I didn't know anyone who had Covid. Then as more lockdowns, more masking, more vaccines and more boosters just about everyone I know has had it or now has it. Most recently, 2 women in my Bible study group--and we meet on Zoom! And almost all of them did everything they were told to do by the Biden administration and their state governments (our governor nagged us for 2 years). Have you had that experience? And now Fauci's back on the news again. Hasn't he had it at least twice? Must be time for the mid-terms?
Money can't fix everything
We sold our home of 34 years in 2001 and the new owners installed a professional kitchen, spending ca. $50,000 ($80,000 in today's dollars), and then got a divorce. The three signs of a marriage in trouble are 1) a new sports car for the husband, 2) an expensive get-away vacation, and/or 3) a ridiculous remodeling project for the wife. Or, maybe money just doesn't fix what's wrong.
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