So, I went to the Franciscan Action Network Page ...

I went to the Franciscan Action Network page to see what they are up to after seeing that they had updated it. They have been attacked and criticized so often by orthodox Franciscans I thought I'd give them a chance.

I clicked on the tab marked "Issues." Up came:

Peace Making

Care for Creation

Poverty

Human Rights

Other Issues

 

I have no objection to those - but I saw nothing about abortion, one of the most important moral issues of our time.

 

I clicked on "Other Issues." Up came mention of "Money in Politics" and "Human Trafficking."

 

No abortion.

 

I clicked on the other issues. Nope, no abortion.

 

So I looked at some of the other main tabs. I finally found an opinion piece published in January in the National Catholic Reporter coauthored by FAN's former head. The piece cited five (!) positions on abortion - but did not state that support should be given for the Church's position, the advocates of which were basically called "purists" at one "end of the spectrum." And the piece went on to argue that we should stop trying to make abortion illegal. We should just try to reduce it - the old position of the pro-choice Democratic Party.

 

Okay. My visit reconfirmed my sense of FAN.

 

A Democratic/progressive front seeking to weaken, maybe even undermine, Catholic teachings.

 

And the national Secular Franciscans support this group?

Pax et bonum

Inching toward retirement

Hey, how often do I get to post on February 29!

On this day, a number of the financial details are being worked out to make it possible for me to retire in June. I will be mailing the forms to consolidate two smaller retirement accounts to give me more than enough to coast for a year before my full Social Security can kick in. My small diocesan pension will start in July to supplement that money. Basically, with those two elements, I will actually have more money available for the next year than I would have earned by working

At school, more annoyances that make me even more convinced it is the right time to retire. Parents who undermine what we are doing - and their own children - a new administrator's style, suggestions that I become the official middle school administrator with all the obligations and duties attached to that, and so on. Even if I was just teaching - I do still enjoy being in the classroom with the students - the grading, report cards, phone calls to parents, extra duties, are outweighing the joy and creativity of teaching.

Unless something drastic or unforeseen happens, I will retire in June.

Pax et bonum

Debris Field

the calculations
off by a decimal point -
debris field explained

Pax et bonum

Random Planets

I've been published in the new anthology Random Planets. The anthology includes various short poems with science fiction/horror themes.

My three contributions:

alien banquet -
host's toothy smile reveals bits  
of missing crewman

* 

mining rights sold
the full moon becomes          
only a crescent

* 

two moons                       
rise above the
lunatic asylum
inspiring the Martian inmates
to howl

The first is a horrorku, the second a scifaiku, and the last one a cinquain.
The anthology features some of the leading names in science fiction poetry, so I feel honored to have my work included.

Pax et bonum

Lenten Fast and Reading

Lent begins in three day.

As I do every year, I look for things to give up, and things to add to help my spiritual growth.

This year: A social media fast, and daily Bible reading.

The fast will be of Twitter and Facebook -places that actually are sometimes harmful to my spiritual life. I will not post on weekday, unless the post is related to school - announcement, photos from event, etc. - the Fraternity, or an important event such as the Stations of the Cross for Life. I will stop in on Sundays to catch up on important news in people's lives, but I'll limit my commenting or responding.

I will continue to blog. I may even blog more regularly as I pray and reflect. But I will not post blog items to Twitter or Facebook.

As for the Bible - I've been wanting to read the letters of James and Peter more carefully.

I'd like to add more spiritual reading, but I won't make that an official item.

Pax et bonum

Stand Out for Life - 2/22/20

More than 150 pro-lifers gathered outside Rochester's Planned Parenthood February 22 to pray for life - and, of course, all the women going in, and the workers - and to offer alternatives for the women in troubled pregnancies.

It was a good crowd given the cold and the wind; even in winter months we get 150-200 plus people.

The media was alerted.

As usual, they did not show. 

We'll be back. Maybe next month they'll join us.

Pax et bonum

Faith Without Works Is Dead

¹⁴ What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?^{[c] 15} If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, ¹⁶ and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? ¹⁷ So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
¹⁸ But some one will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. ¹⁹ You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder. ²⁰ Do you want to be shown, you foolish fellow, that faith apart from works is barren? ²¹ Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? ²² You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works, ²³ and the scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness”; and he was called the friend of God. ²⁴ You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. ²⁵ And in the same way was not also Rahab the harlot justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? ²⁶ For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead. - James 2: 14-26 

Pax et bonum

A Retiring Sort?

I've always been a reserved, retiring kind of person. I like my alone time. I don't like being in crowds.  I'd rather watch form off to the side or behind than be a center of attention. In the band I'm in, I try to avoid solos, and I stand behind the singers. And I avoid playing out on my own where I would be the center of attention.

Even though I do like acting, it is acting. I am playing a role: It's not I. Even as a teacher that is true.

I like to write. It's a solo occupation. When it comes to photography, I like to be the person behind the camera.

As a Franciscan, I like helping people in and out the door, or out to their cars. I don't like being the Fraternity minister, running the meetings.

Now, retirement from the working world is looming - perhaps as early as June. I may indeed be able to pull it off financially: This February break is being spent on evaluating whether it's doable.

I'd like to volunteer - providing support behind the scenes, or being in a service role.

I'm leaning that way. We'll see.

Pax et bonum

Saul Alinsky about Lucifer

Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins — or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer.

— SAUL ALINSKY (Epigram from Rules for Radicals)

Pax et bonum

Some Political Clerihews

Amy Klobuchar
hoped her low-key, quiet ways would take her far,
but in launching her campaign she failed to note
there are just not enough librarians available to vote.

Elizabeth Warren
campaigned in the restaurant of a Salvadoran.
When she tasted a pupusa she said,
"Why, this is just like my mother's Cherokee fry bread."

Bernie Sanders
gets uneasy whenever he spots chameleons and salamanders.
He yells and waves his hands above his head
because he knows if they get near him they'll turn red.

Beto O'Rourke
decided to uncork
some Spanish instead of an answer, so
he replied, "Gargarizo con el queso."

Senator Cory Booker
is more than a side-looker.
After all, as he told us,
he is Spartacus.

Vermin Supreme
awoke from a bad dream.
In it, Democratic candidates at a joint ceremony
promised everyone a free pony.

Kirsten Gillibrand
was building a castle in the sand,
but whenever the winds would shift,
her sand would drift.

Pete Buttigieg
sought to give his slim electoral hopes a nudge.
Hence
his gratuitous attack on Vice President Mike Pence.

Kamala Harris
didn't mean to embarrass,
but her family's reaction to her Jamaican drug joke
suggests her presidential campaign might just go up in smoke.

Donald Trump
called his critic a chump.
Actually, he used some more colorful words,
but so far has avoided flipping birds.

Nancy Pelosi
is fond of the Ed Wood films of Bela Lugosi.
Behind closed doors she has a thing
for loudly declaring, "Pull the string!"

Representative Adam Schiff
gets wide-eyed when he gets a whiff
of deceit and deception, though events have shown

he's oblivious to his own.

Pax et bonum

Commenting and Responding

Over the years, I have written blog posts that respond to some comments/arguments used by others, or to present viewpoints to respond about particular issues. I have then used them to respond directly, posting links.

Some of them have gotten quite a few views.

One citing Tolkien on degraded (foul/course) language has gotten more than a 1,000 pageviews, for example.

The aforementioned Tolkien post is about language. In a similar vein, I have a post about being a "prude" when it comes to language, modesty, etc. That one has gotten more than 500 views.

The issue of abortion is close to my heart. One post with a clerihew linking abortion - and Planned Parenthood - to Moloch worship has gotten about 300 views.

There are others related to abortion. One is about the lies that underlie abortion. There are also some posts with poetry such as this one or this one - though these are used less often in my responses.

One argument often used against pro-lifers is that they only care about the baby pre-birth, and offer no help to the women and children after, or that they don't care about the poor and needy in general. There are two posts dealing with that. One is about agencies/organizations helping the women and their babies. or highlighting a few ways pro-lifers care about the poor and needy. Those two combined have gotten just under 200 views at this point.

I will continue to use all of these posts. Perhaps they will touch hearts in ways that direct debate will not.

Pax et bonum

Art exhibition

Art exhibition -
all the clichés
on display

Pax et bonum

After the snow

Pax et bonum

One County's Resolution: Sanctuary for the Unborn

Passed in August, 2019 -

RESOLUTION OF THE YADKIN COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, DECLARING THE COUNTY OF YADKIN, NORTH CAROLINA TO BE A SANCTUARY FOR LIFE AND URGING THE CITIZENS OF THE COUNTY OF YADKIN TO PROMOTE AND DEFEND THE INALIENABLE RIGHT TO LIFE AND THE INHERENT DIGNITY OF ALL HUMAN BEINGS, INCLUDING THE PRE-BORN, FROM CONCEPTION OR FERTILIZATION THROUGH ALL STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT.


WHEREAS, the Declaration of Independence affirms that all men are created equal and have been endowed by the Creator with unalienable rights— chief among them the right to life— and that the protection of these rights is an affirmative duty of federal, state, and local governments; and

WHEREAS, James Madison, who is considered to be the father of the constitution, wrote that "the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands...may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny;" and

WHEREAS, the Supreme Court of the United States has abused its proper function of judicial review and supplanted it with the unconstitutional theory judicial supremacy in order to legislate and impose its policy preferences upon the people; and

WHEREAS, the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution provide for the protection of human life and liberty; and

WHEREAS, the Supreme Court of the United States in Poelker v. Doe (432 US 519, 1977) concluded that "the Constitution does not forbid a State or city, pursuant to democratic processes, from expressing a preference for normal childbirth" instead of abortion; and

WHEREAS, state police power derives from the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gives states the powers "not delegated to the United States;" and

WHEREAS, the power to establish and enforce laws protecting the welfare, safety, and health of the public is a core function of the state’s Tenth Amendment police power; and

WHEREAS, Section I of the Constitution of North Carolina states that "all persons are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, the enjoyment of the fruits of their own labor, and the pursuit of happiness"; and

WHEREAS, this County Board of Commissioners desires to express its deep concern that all human beings, at every stage of development, including before birth, in the county of Yadkin should be afforded protection from acts of cruelty, and be treated humanely and with dignity.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED:

Section 1. The Yadkin County Board of Commissioners hereby recognizes and declares the full humanity of the preborn child and declares Yadkin County to be a sanctuary for the preborn where the dignity of every human being will be defended and promoted from conception or fertilization through all stages of development.

Section 2. The Yadkin County Board of Commissioners hereby resolves to enforce this resolution by all means within its power, in accordance with its responsibility as the people's elected local representatives.

Section 3. Based upon the desire to be recognized as a sanctuary county for life, the Yadkin County Board of Commissioners shall arrange for the placement of a suitable commemorative plaque on the grounds of the county government declaring the County of Yadkin to be a "Sanctuary for Pre-born Children."

Section 4. Based upon this resolution, the Yadkin County Board of Commissioners will organize a public meeting to request input from citizens, churches, and other social organizations to determine possible measures to be adopted within the means and power of the county in order to provide support for mothers and fathers of pre-born children and to become a county that truly welcomes and protects the gift of life from conception or fertilization through all stages of development.

Go here for more information about what to do - https://personhood.org/take-action/sanctuary-cities-for-life/

 Pax et bonum

Catholic Bishop Slams Democrat Presidential Candidates on Abortion

Catholic Bishop Slams Democrat Presidential Candidates: “All of Them are Pro-Abortion”: Frustration with the Democratic Party's extreme pro-abortion agenda is growing. On Wednesday, Rhode Island Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin joined a crowd of ...





Pax et bonum

Shy moon

The moon
behind the clouds
watching the world like a
shy girl seeking shelter behind
curtains.

Pax et bonum

But, it's legal

Pax et bonum