What to read, and not, church documents edition [Updated]

Of the making of many books there is no end, and that goes for official teaching documents of the Catholic Church as well. The church is replete with cardinals, bishops, dicasteries, pontifical commissions, bishops conferences, departments of bishops conferences, and so on and so on, and they all have staffs, and they all put out documents, many of which are lengthy, and all of which are densely written.  Consequently, I  am perpetually behind in my reading.

For the record

First firefly of 2018:  June 7, 9:38 pm. Seemed to be wandering aimlessly. Hope it's okay.

Sighting was in Central New York State. Temperature said to be 59, possibly true.

MISS AMERICA CANDIDATES WILL NO LONGER BE JUDGED ON PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

The Miss America Organization just yesterday announced sweeping changes, among them the following:

This change in format signals the end of the swimsuit portion of the competition. In its place, each candidate will participate in a live interactive session with the judges, where she will highlight her achievements and goals in life and how she will use her talents, passion, and ambition to perform the job of Miss America.

The former evening gown competition will now give participants the freedom to outwardly express their self-confidence in evening attire of their choosing while discussing how they will advance their social impact initiatives. Talent, which has always been a distinguishing element of Miss America, will remain a highlight of the competition.

Jean visits a psychic

Religion was a sticking point between my late mother and me. She felt she had given me a free-thinking and humanist upbringing as a Unitarian. She saw my baptism in the Episcopal Church and conversion to Catholicism as a repudiation of her and her ideas. I tried to find common ground, though I'm not sure she didn't see it as a subtle attempt to convert her. She and Dad had both been exposed to holy-rollerism as kids, and they saw "church" mostly as a racket in which a preacher terrified you with hellfire, and then dunned you for money the rest of your life for "fire insurance."

While Mom rejected conventional religion she was often fascinated with the paranormal--Bridey Murphy, Edgar Cayce, Bishop Pike, Shirley MacLean, Jeane Dixon. I saw this as a desire to believe in something, to find comfort in a Beyond. As I got older, I grew increasingly impatient with the woo woo. She wanted Paradise without the God she'd learned about in Sunday school. Like Hazel Motes's Church Without Jesus in Flannery O'Connor's "Wiseblood." 

So perhaps in a last stab at understanding her, or maybe just out of rank curiosity after all that exposure in childhood, I recently found myself in a silvery tent at a local fair with a psychic who claimed to channel the Archangel Michael, having just shucked out twenty bucks for a 15 minute "reading."

Animal House

Suburbia is reputed to be the Land of the Automobile, the Land of the Strip Mall and the Land of the McMansion, and there is a good deal of truth to all of those appellations.  It must be noted, however, that Nature was here long before the Interstate Highway System came through and Target Stores set up shop, and she hasn't surrendered yet to the inexorable march of human civilization and the construction industry.

Sunday morning inspiration

Walking home from Mass this morning, I saw a slogan that might give focus to the widely reported, but hard to identify, Resistance.

It was a bumper sticker on the back of a large SUV of indeterminate manufacture. The sticker read, "Make America America Again."

Perhaps implicit in that idea, or so I mulled, is that the singular focus on the Fraudster-in-Chief, can be shifted to a multi-focus on the diversity of all of us, the rest of the country.

Any chance of that?

Can post but not comment

OK, I can post, but I can't comment.  I tried to comment on my Trouble signing in  post.  ??????

So strange. I am signed in with the gmail account I created for this site, because I thought that we couldn't use yahoo.

My name does not appear on the blue bar. I can post and edit, but not comment.

Until I can figure this out, I will comment here to Margaret.  I had written it in  a comment this morning - that's when I discovered it wouldn't accept my comment and the profiles don't include my gmail account. Yet I can post and edit.  The mysteries.....

I suspect the yoiung adults who retirned to Ireland to vote are not dual passport holders, but do live and work in the UK or the EU. I know from my French daughter-in-law and her family and friends that the young adults move quite freely throughout the EU for jobs, education etc, because they don't have the hassles of sponsorship for visas and work permits.  Irish heritage people who were born in another country can get an Irish passport, but only if either one of their parents or one of their grandparents were born in Ireland. Since the big migration to the US and Australia and the UK occurred in the mid-19th century, most of we "Irish Americans" etc are not eligible.

Second - Phonak. Supposed to be the best for severe-profound high frequency loss and I will be trying those out as my next pair.  Costco carries them (one generation behind usually) and AARP has discounts if you use an affiliated audiologist.