Let me address this head on: I have a sincere disaffection for polls, polls of any kind. My animus for polls runs deep, so much so that any lawmaker who would propose legislation to proscribe them would have my full though admittedly completely inconsequential support.
Whenever I chance to recall that moment when I first held her in my arms it is the eyes that I remember with such deep and lasting memory. Those dark brown eyes stole my heart with such promise of never ending love and so it has been these past fifteen years.
During a recent conversation that tended to be mainly a critique on my particular style of writing I was told by a friend that he thought of me as cerebral. Now my initial reaction was to take his comment as a compliment but after thinking about it, I’m not quite so sure. Whether it was intended as a compliment or if I should have been offended will simply have to be left as a question unanswered.
As Catholics, particularly those in this country but also around the world, it appears that we have entered into a near permanent state of denial or perhaps we are merely attempting to delude ourselves. But then again it could be that we have simply switched onto autopilot and are coasting through life caring little for what it truly means or what is required of us to identify ourselves as Christian and Catholic.
Saint Thomas Aquinas described the Lord’s Prayer as the most perfect of prayers….”In it we ask, not only for all the things we can rightly desire, but also in the sequence that they should be desired. This prayer not only teaches us to ask for things, but also in what order we should desire them.”[1]
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American Icon Will Rogers was noted for his political wit and supposedly once remarked that “It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, but you can lose it in a minute.” To which, I might add, like a new pair of shoes, once worn, you can never again call them new shoes.
Extreme Epidermal Translucency, infrequently diagnosed prior to a mere decade or two ago, has quite virulently infected, or so it would appear, the preponderance of the population and at the current rapid rate of infection threatens to become a global pandemic so pervasive and widespread that within virtually no time at all is expected to claim more victims than that of the Black Plague, the Third Pandemic, the Plague of Justinian, the Great Plague of London, the American Plagues of the 16th Century, the Great Plague of Milan, the Plague of Athens, the Antonine Plague, the Great Plague of Marseille, and the Moscow Plague combined, so reported the International Office Blaming Just Every Cottonpicking Thing (IOBJECT) in today’s totally expected, completely undocumented and really unimportant pre-shredded report.
Suddenly it feels as though my time here is quickly coming to an ending and yet I find myself clinging tightly to its beginning, not quite prepared to hear the next tick or tock of that ever consistent clock. I suppose that any reluctance that I am experiencing can be attributed to just how much I have accomplished during my brief sojourn here, coupled with the self-imposed exile that I have so thoroughly enjoyed. There is no question that there are many friends, one particular dog, and the feel and smell of home that I do sincerely miss (so much so that I can taste it,) yet there is a silent stillness that invades my soul in the quiet solitude of this place and I know that I will surely miss it when I go. But then I know that someday I’ll be back.
Somedays I simply cannot help myself. I know it’s awful and cruel but after the day that I have had, I just had to impart a bit of pretentious erudite levity upon myself. I sincerely doubt that many will find my subtitle amusing or even moderately interesting but I got a chuckle out of it anyway.
Instituted By Christ
making disciples of all nations
Were it not for opinion, the silence would be deafening. Facts are impediments, too often dispelling myth and tale upon which we are want to rely. What we believe (opinion) and what is truth (fact) are in rare sympathy for it is easier to opine than to bear witness to the facts: what is objectively and historically true.
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