St. Francis
The first part of October is crammed with good feast days. St. Therese on October 1st, St. Francis today, St. Bruno in a few days.
In honor of St. Francis Feast Day, I grabbed Joseph Pearce's Wisdom and Innocence, A Life of GK Chesterton off the shelf. Here are a couple of Assisi-linked passages:
"For Chesterton, and for Francis, all the laughter in the world was worthless unless accompanied by humility."
In his book about St. Francis, it "is difficult to tell when Chesterton is describing the Franciscan spirit and when he is defining the Chestertonian philosophy."
After Chesterton's death, Alan Watts, guru of the 1960s counter-culture, wrote about GKC's spiritual joie de vivre: "'Although I am anything but a Roman Catholic, the recent death of G. K. Chesterton felt almost like a personal loss. For with no writer of today did I find myself in deeper sympathy. It was not that I agreed with all his ideas, but rather that I felt myself in complete accord with his basic attitude to life."
Teetering and Tottering with Greece
Anybody else tired of this Greece see-saw? For crying out loud. One day, there's a plan. The next day, it's off. Has there ever been a news story that has vacillated with such wild velocity? I honestly can't recall one. I suspect it's just a snapshot of the world's terrible financial mess. Unload all your stocks. Buy wine and food and guns.
If there were no minimum wage jobs, there would be no unemployment. But no matter: Minimum wage to rise in eight states. They're COLAs. * * * * * * * Got a girl in the Scouts? Get 'er out! Any money that is given to the Girl Scouts goes to their national office”¦this includes money for uniforms, badges, cookies, annual dues, etc. That money is then, in part, used to associate with Planned Parenthood. No one can say that “their troupe” does not give money to Planned Parenthood. Link. My Deacon was railing against the Girl Scouts this weekend, too. I'm not sure what transpired to push up the Catholic concern, but what the heck. If the Girl Scouts is for Planned Parenthood, I'm against the Girl Scouts. * * * * * * * Putting a hitch in the Obama class warfare giddy-up: Top 1% Paid More in Federal Income Taxes Than Bottom 95% in '07.
Senior Moment
"We are in a downward, reciprocally causative spin: because our work is disordered, there is no time to pray, and because there is no time to pray our work grows worse."
