Vintage

I do so hate getting rid of my family and friends, but there are times when this fanciful thought crosses my mind. Like this morning, as my well-meaning but misguided father forwarded yet one more e-mail that he failed to check out.

So, today’s Chicken Little warning pretty much told me not to buy Glade Air Fresheners (plug-in type), or my children, my husband and myself would die horrible, fiery deaths as our house would burst into an orgasm of incendiary madness about us, with little left behind to identify the culprit but two tiny prongs in an electrical outlet.

And, of course, there was the emotional guilt required at the end of the e-mail to encourage me to waste other people’s time as mine had been wasted. These guilt trips just irk me all the more, for the feeling that someone is trying to manipulate my emotions in addition to insulting my intelligence.

Our society requires a certain amount of responsibility when doing certain things: driving cars, raising children, cooking food, etc. I am held responsible if my bookkeeping doesn’t conform to certain requirements: that it be accurate, timely, and auditable, for example. If I yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater, I may be held liable for any economic and physical damage that may ensue from such a sophomoric act. Why then, do so many get away with insisting that their cyber friends must be as lazy and as gullible as they are? The anonymity of the internet allows all sorts of things to occur that our normal society would never allow. If I were to stand on a street corner with a sandwich board proclaiming that McDonalds had HIV infested syringes or snakes in the ball pits of their children’s play areas, I am sure that McDonalds would come after me with all the force allowed by law for ruining their good name. I know for a fact that an ad slandering Proctor & Gamble as a satanic organization would result in impending bankruptcy – on my part.

Who sits around and creates these things, these urban legends and internet hoaxes? I can only imagine some frustrated baker who has this killer recipe for chocolate chip cookies and wants to be sure everyone has it in their kitchens. “I know!” she exclaims, “I’ll put my recipe on the internet, and just to make sure that everyone looks at it, I’ll make up a story where I’m an underdog battling big, bad Neiman-Marcus Stores. Everyone hates large corporations, so they’ll be more than willing to spread my recipe everywhere in order to get back and them!” And the housewife plops herself down and creates her fabrication to get her cookie recipe out. Unfortunately, Neiman-Marcus must now spend untold amounts of time and money trying to convince people that this event never happened. Of course, the original chocolate chip recipe has been replaced by many recipes over the years, as people replace the original recipe with their own favorite oatmeal or sugar cookie recipes before sending it on through the wires to the next group of unsuspecting dupes.

Or maybe, it’s just someone who wants attention, but is afraid of getting in trouble. The internet is perfect for just such situations. I could send out an e-mail, claiming to have gotten it from an anonymous source, and waiting to see the trouble it could cause. How many people can I make lose sleep? How much consternation can I cause? For example, there is an urban legend on the internet that drinking bleach can help one overcome a drug test (“cleaning” the urine). This is dangerous as well as malicious.

The people who forward these falsehoods mean well, I am sure. If I thought a friend of mine was facing dire danger, I would want to warn him as well. But because it is so easy, so incredibly simple, to hit the “forward” button on the e-mail screen, they don’t take the time to make sure that the stories are true. It is easier to waste other people’s time and energy than their own, and who will blame them for the costs associated with the lie? If these self-same people were required to stand before a court of law with a hand on the Bible and proclaim these same statements that are sent so blithely through the internet, how many would escape a perjury punishment? And could they be held liable for a friend’s rape or death because the victim took on full faith the information about "how to fight off a rapist" that was sent to them by the afore mentioned “friend”? How many of these e-mails would stop, or at least be checked out?

Yesterday I had to correct an e-mail (for the second or third time, I believe) that declared that inputting your PIN number backwards into your ATM machine would alert the police that you were in trouble. Not the financial kind, like forgetting to get enough cash to take out that hot chickie-poo waiting eagerly in the car, but the kind where someone with a gun was forcing you to withdraw your life savings in $300 increments. I can only imagine myself at the ATM, desperately punching in backwards PIN numbers, hoping the police show up and confident that they will, because I was told by a very good friend who was told by another good friend who was on someone’s e-mail list, who got has it on good authority from a cousin who thought she read somewhere on the internet that this was true. And as I wait for the police, the robber takes my money and shoots me dead. And as I lay dying, I rage at the fact that the police didn’t get there in time. In fact the police won’t arrive until my rigid body is discovered in the cold of the morning, and they wonder why I didn’t run away or fight for my life instead of allowing myself to be taken hostage. It happened because it was on the internet, and of course, that makes it true.

With all the websites available to check out the veracity of these claims, it is inexcusable that the senders don’t avail themselves of this information. As I’ve told several of my friends who insist that I avoid all the dangers of pay phones and fake state troopers, the following items in an e-mail automatically get my antenna up:

1) WARNING WARNING! The sky is falling…or some such nonsense. If it’s a warning, I go check it out before I start changing my lifestyle or habits. I have learned that I do not need to check my toilet for the sneaky and dangerous "butt spider," thank goodness!

2) “This (insert authority figure here) states this is true!” This could be anything from a government agency, TV show, firefighter, insurance agent, or doctor. Even if the (insert authority figure here) actually exists, their names can easily be borrowed to lend an air of truthfulness to the story.

3) If there are too many details – yeah, the same as number 2. After reading enough of these things, I can pretty much tell when someone’s trying to feed me a load of BS rather than delectable chocolate cake. Actually, it's almost every one of these. If e-mails could be converted to the fertilizer that they are, my gardens would be incredibly green.

4) “I’ve checked this out on Snopes, and it’s true!” I’ve seen this one a couple of times. Yes, it may be on www.snopes.com, one of the most popular anti-hoax websites. Each time I’ve seen this, the threat may be mentioned, but it’s either (1) old and outdated, (2) not as severe as the e-mail tries to tell me, or (3)some other important item that is left out of the original e-mail.

5) An urgent demand that this message be sent to all of your friends, family members, religious community, old school chums, and all of their relatives, living and dead, as well as their pets. This is usually couched as an emotional guilt trip; for example, “Send this on to everyone you know. It could save their life!” A variation of this is the religious implication attached to usually more friendly e-mails, to wit: “If you love Jesus, you will send this to seventy-seven of your best friends RIGHT NOW!” And then there is the tease: “Send this to twenty-five of your inner circle right now and you will see a cute surprise!” All of these are despicable methods of trying to get you to waste internet bandwidth to make you feel better.

If I’ve offended anyone, I’m not terribly apologetic, because it probably means that you are one of those well-meaning family members or friends who just insist on believing everything that is sent to you. Or maybe you just want to send me all of these meaningless but infuriating e-mails on the off-chance that it MIGHT be true, but you just don’t want to take the time to check it out yourself. Well I’m tired of being everyone’s gatekeeper. You are tired of my sending out “reply all” messages to everyone you send to, pointing out the fact that you have, in some fact, lied to them all. Just do us all a favor, and quit sending these stories out. Then I can get more work done, and so can you, and the urban legends creators can get real, meaningful jobs. This sounds harsh, but then God had to knock Saul off his horse and blind him for three days to get his attention, too. (THAT is not an urban legend, by the way – it comes from the Bible.)
Speaking of work…did you hear about the man who died at his desk and wasn’t discovered for five whole days? Well, there’s a reason for that! Now, back to work!

I’ve been hearing on the radio the things that Mrs. Obama has been saying to the crowds recently.  It’s the same things I’ve been hearing from the Democrats for years. To listen to them, one would think our country is on the brink of economic and moral disaster.  The rich are always evil, the poor are always oppressed and innocent, and it is the duty of those in power to even things out.

Well, there ARE some evil rich people.  That’s about as far as I’m willing to go in agreeing with them.  Of course, there are evil poor people, evil middle class people, evil people in general.  Or, to be more correct, people who engage in evil behavior.  There are also some very good rich people, good poor people, good middle class people.  I remember being asked when being vetted for a jury pool if I believed that all cops told the truth.  My answer? “There are good cops and there are bad cops, just like any profession.”  That observation applies across all races, creeds, genders, and age groups.  But for those who don’t think that life has treated them fairly, it is so much easier to find a common outside element on which to push all the failures of life. 

I am the seventh child in a large family.  My father had to work multiple jobs almost my whole childhood, and we didn’t get to see much of him.  My mother, bless her heart, had to handle the daily duties of the large brood.  Laundry was washed every day.  She sorted and washed, we children helped with hanging the laundry on the line.  We tried not to use the dryer, because we were in constant “save money” mode.  We always knew money was tight when the beans and cornbread came out.  I sometimes had the feeling that we were somewhat begrudged the food we ate, though it wasn’t until I was an adult that I understood why.  Huge volumes of foodstuffs disappeared down the many throats, like an overgrown brood of chicks in a nest. We had a huge garden in the backyard, from which we harvested and canned our food. Behind the garden were the livestock: rabbits, ducks, chickens, and pigs. We butchered much of our own meat. Mom sewed clothes and house linens, and repaired our hand-me-down-clothes on her ever-running sewing machine, including winter coats for my sister and me, which we hated wearing because the other kids had store-bought coats.  I was in high school before receiving my first store-bought shirt, from the dollar discount rack at K-Mart.  I was so excited to get that shirt!  While a child, I didn’t realize we were different from others in our community.  As I grew older, I began to comprehend that we were different. While others could buy their school lunch, we were always brown bagging bologna sandwiches and baggies of chips or popcorn. While other kids took family vacations, we stayed at home all summer.  While other kids went out to eat with their families, I was flabbergasted and excited about being invited to Long John Silver’s with a classmate for eight grade graduation.  I’ll never forget David’s mom saying, “It’s just Long Johns!”  What she didn’t realize was that it was a place to eat that wasn’t home.  Except for one vague memory, I had never “eaten out” before.  But for all that, no one ever told me that we were poor.  Nobody ever said we were lacking anything.  So I never had serious issues with my childhood economic status. 

I read voraciously as a child, and looked forward to elementary school.  All of my elder siblings chose different courses in school, and not all of them productive, while I focused on my classes and strove to achieve.  I was so embarrassed when I brought home my first “C” in ninth grade math! I was the first of the tribe to go to college.  All of my elder siblings chose different courses in school, not all of them productive, while I focused on my classes and strove to achieve.  I was so embarrassed when I brought home my first “C” in ninth grade. Because of my focus on my education, I was “lucky” enough to be awarded a full ride scholarship to college.  (I dislike greatly the use of the word “lucky,” as if I didn’t put in any effort to be eligible!)  After entering the university, I always carried 15 or more hours, applied myself diligently, didn’t skip classes, and turned in all of my assignments.  I graduated with nice scores and was able to get a job with a large airline, eventually moving on to consulting work, and now work at running the family business with my husband.

I tell you all of this to point out a few things.  We were not privileged.  There were times in college where my fiancé and I had to live off of his Dad’s credit card.  I worked in the summers to earn much-needed money.  When I became depressed about my workload in college, my fiancé kept me from quitting and we helped each other stick it out.  If I had to, I would have found some kind of part-time job during the semester and not told my scholarship trustee.  After marriage, there were times where I literally wondered if I’d be able to buy groceries for our next meal.  I had to use unemployment one time, and I didn’t like it. The idea of going “on the dole” just never occurred to me.

Why do I tell you all this?  Because, if my parents had listened to the line that today’s Democrat leaders spew, we would have been on welfare.  We would have been told over and over that we were not capable of helping ourselves.  We would have been bludgeoned with the fact that money was tight and we could not hope for anything better.  If I had been told as a young child that I had no hope of ever attaining better, would I have worked as hard?  Would I have pushed through in college when times got tough? Would I have become so dependent upon handouts that when I entered the tough times after marriage, I would have settled for the handout lifestyle and given up?

Perhaps I’m an optimist.  Where the Obamas of the world see people who need more welfare, I see untapped potential.  Where they see unskilled workers without jobs, I see a business opportunity for someone to teach them.  Where they see children as a burden to be disposed of, I see the future of our country.  Where the screaming about poor education abounds, I see parents and a culture where a free education is not valued.  Where they decry the rich for taking the money away from the poor, I see examples from which the poor can learn to improve their lives.  I don’t get angry about someone getting ahead – I try to copy them!  Don’t lick ‘em, join ‘em!  

Where are the programs to teach the poor to handle money?  Why isn’t someone organizing them, teaching them to work together to achieve honorable ends until they can stand on their own?  Instead of telling people how incapable they are of handling their lives, why are our leaders not lifting them up and giving them dignity? If you beat me often enough, at some point I will finally succumb.  This is a depressing example of Pavlovian economic policy: punish attempts at success, and reward submission.

Our society may have problems, but they are not the problems that Mrs. Obama describes in such heart-wrenching detail to the admiring mobs.  Our country is not on the brink of demise, not yet anyway.  I could never live with myself if I had to always see the dark side of life, never hoping for anything better.  Even worse, I could never live with myself if I brought others down by telling them they could never hope for anything better, that they were the playtoys of fate alone.  How dismal that outlook is!  I wonder - how well do the Democrats sleep?

Being one of twelve children does not always mean that you have someone with which to spend time.  Our family tended to divide itself into cliques, among ourselves and also among our neighbors.  Judy, who lived across the street, was close in age to both my next oldest sister and me, so we both spent time with her.  Judy also had a pony, which made her place an even more inviting destination.  Of course, at age nine or so, almost anywhere except home would be more inviting, pony or not.

One day, as I was helping Judy curry her pony, she looked up and asked, “What’s that?” Swiveling, I covered my eyes and saw a speck on the horizon in the clear blue sky.  “Prob’ly just a plane,” I replied, and turned my attention back to the curry comb. We combed and talked some more, and then she said, “It’s getting bigger!”  I turned again, and sure enough, the speck had grown. “It’s not a plane,” I said, stepping away slightly as if I would actually get a better viewing angle on the object. “I can’t tell what it is,” I said.  We both continued to stand there, curry combs in hand, pony waiting patiently for more attention, as the speck grew and grew.

It was long, and thin, whatever it was, and our curiosity continued to hold us spellbound. It grew longer and longer, never leaving the horizon but growing towards us, like yarn from a skein. It wasn’t until it was overhead that we could determine what it was…

Birds!  A huge, long flock of birds!  They were some kind of sparrow, maybe, flying in formation.  As near as I could tell, they were flying about 10 deep, about 20-30 feet wide, and the sides straight as if they had been sliced with a knife.  Even the front was only barely ragged, mostly straight across.  They were flying low enough that we could hear them and see individual birds. There were no loud sounds, only soft chirping as they carried on whatever conversations birds have while flying so close together.  And the sound of their flying – like the whisper of wishes on a soft spring breeze.  It was like a waterfall of air, brushing gently over rocks as it made its way to whatever final destination lay ahead.  Judy and I were hypnotized, watching and listening.  At one point, the line of birds stretched as far as the eye could see in either direction, still in formation.  Finally, the line of birds ended, and we continued to watch until they were a speck again, on the opposite horizon.

Imagine our world in the not-too-distant future In parts of the northern hemisphere, the temperature plummets to -9F. At 13 below, public transportation fails. Those caught outside freeze to death. Buildings collapse under the weight of snow and ice. The power goes out, society collapses, and anarchy takes its place. Could this be a vision of our future? Naked Science examines what may cause temperatures to plummet and how this could spell disaster for our planet.

That is the teaser for Naked Science: The Big Freeze airing on the National Geographic Channel. I only caught a few minutes of it (it airs again) but was quite surprised at some of the discoveries. Scientists drilled ice cores in Greenland representing millions of years in time and climate change. Not surprisingly (to me, at least) we are currently, and for the last 10,000 years, experiencing an uncharacteristically steady climatological period. The ice cores reveal that most of the time the earth's climate swings in drastic and devastating cycles of global cooling and warming, sometimes by as much as 21° C in as little as ten years. And man has absolutely no control over it.  National Geographic has really been pushing the manmade global warming bull.  It will be interesting how they reconcile past shows with this one.  I'll try and catch the whole thing next time it airs. Not Friday morning at 2am, though.

For those who are not Catholic, Lent can be a mysterious ritual. Heck, even for those of us who ARE of the Catholic faith, it is STILL a mysterious time. Each year, we recreate ourselves in pursuit of the perfection of our Lord.

First, let me clarify what Lent is not. Ash Wednesday is not the starting line for “begin your diet now” Lenten observers. Lent is not one day of dirty foreheads. Lent is not just the end of wild revelry like Mardi Gras or Carnival. And Lent is not just for those who attend the Catholic church – anyone can observe Lent, as formally or as informally as they wish.

Now, to clarify what Lent is. The Lenten experience is different for everyone who truly dives into it. The Catholic Church observes a season of Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday and lasts until the Triduum. The Triduum are the three days just prior to the grand celebration of Easter: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday/Easter Vigil. To prepare ourselves for the grandness of the events of the Triduum and Easter Sunday, we spend our “time in the desert” preparing our spiritual selves. We imitate Christ by spending time preparing ourselves for ministry. Whether we are called to live as Christians in the secular world, or to wear a collar or habit, we all have the ministry to nourish ourselves and others with the Word. To do this properly, we must seek Jesus and to follow His ways.

Lent is known as a time of sacrifice and self-discipline. Giving up something valuable is not a popular practice, especially in these modern times. By practicing self-discipline, we remind ourselves of the sacrifice He made for us, and we flex our spiritual muscles by constantly reminding ourselves of what we are doing, and why. Being tempted by that candy bar in the store and forcing that temptation into a corner not only makes us stronger by not adding on the pounds, but the reminder of why we did not succumb reminds us of who we are, and to whom we belong. While chocolate is one of the more popular sacrifices (and speaking as a true chocoholic, it IS a sacrifice!), there are other things that we can sacrifice as well. Increasing our donations to our church, giving up our precious TV time to help out at a charity, passing up that gossip magazine – there are as many ways to improve ourselves by “giving up” as there are individuals.

In addition to “giving up,” Lent is also a time of “building up”. In addition to self-discipline, which gives us strength to get through the desert, we are encouraged to improve our spirituality, which is the road map through the desert. Being strong without purpose helps no one. Increased prayer time, reading the Bible, studying Christ, experiencing a retreat – these are all ways to bring ourselves closer the one who saved us. This provides direction for our lives. With Christ at our side as our guide, we travel in a straight line through the desert.

At the end of Lent, we face the long Easter season stronger emotionally and spiritually than when we began. How much stronger depends upon how far into the desert we tread. How many temptations will we face? That depends upon our sacrifice. Giving up something that is not important is not much of a sacrifice, and the spiritual trek won’t go far. Spending no time in spiritual preparation merely leaves on wandering aimlessly in circles, dipping into and out of the experience, as one would do at the edge of the wilderness.

So I leave you this Lent, wishing much sacrifice and much spiritual growth. I won’t challenge you – your challenges are yours to define. Just remember that the celebration that is Easter is like an oasis on the other side of the desert, where your thirst will be quenched. How big the oasis will be, and how deep and clear the water, will depend upon your willingness to tackle the challenge of Lent. In the spirit of Lent, I wish for you an arduous trip through your desert, so that you can dive deeply into the clean, clear, cool water of your Easter oasis!

As a Catholic, I have had many discussions with my Protestant friends who adhere to the dogma Sola Fide (Faith Alone), which states that once saved you cannot fall from grace with God. Catholics believe that faith without works is hollow:

So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead — James 2:17

I've recently rediscovered the writings of Bishop Fulton Sheen. Currently I'm reading Peace of Soul, a book written at the dawn of the Cold War in 1949. Sheen looks at things from another direction I had not considered: works without faith. As I read I realized he was describing perfectly how the modern Liberal approaches religion:

We are willing to be saved from poverty, from war, from ignorance, from disease, from economic insecurity; such types of salvation leave our individual whims and passions and concupiscences untouched. That is one of the reasons why social Christianity is so very popular, why there are many who contend that the business of Christianity is to do nothing but to help in slum clearance or the development of international amity.

After the 2004 election the Democrats realized that the group of people to push the Republicans to victory was the faithful. So what did they do? They got that old time religion. But they only embraced the "works" part. To be sure, that is an important part of knowing God. But works without faith is also hollow:

This kind of religion is, indeed, very comfortable, for it leaves the individual conscience alone. It is even possible that some persons are prompted to courageous reforms of social injustices by the very inquietude and uneasiness of their individual consciences: Knowing that something is wrong on the inside, they attempt to compensate for it by righting the wrong on the outside. This is also the mechanism of those persons, who, having accumulated great fortunes, try to ease their consciences by subsidizing revolutionary movements.

This is the "religion" of environmentalists, of Palestinian rights organizations, of anti-war groups like Code Pink, of the entire leadership of the Democrat Party. Even people like Bill Gates and George Soros call this religion home. But Sheen points out the dangers of this "works only" religion:

The first temptation of Satan on the Mount was to try to induce Our Lord to give up the salvation of souls and to concentrate upon social salvation by turning stones into bread - on the false assumption that it was hungry stomachs and not corrupted hearts that made an unhappy civilization. ... Sensing a broader need for religion, others are willing to join a Christian sect so long as it concentrates on social "uplift" or the elimination of pain but leaves untouched the individual need of atoning for sin. At the average dinner table people do not object to the subject of religion being introduced into a conversation - provided that religion has nothing to do with the purging of sin and guilt.

Wow! That is so obvious, yet so profound. Left-leaning social justice groups have no problem tackling the noble cause of caring for AIDS patients but recoil at the thought of atonement for sins. In my own Church such "liberation theology" groups will open shelters for illegal immigrants but refuse to acknowledge that that they are leading those same people (and themselves) into a criminal existence, causing them to live in a shadow world.

Faith and works are intertwined. I think a real relationship with God requires both.