Author: SDG

Feminist Mormon Housewives

Sometimes while surfing the Internet, I come across a site fascinating for it’s value as an object of curiosity that I just have to let the world know about it.  I guess that’s why God created blogs.

FEMINIST MORMON HOUSEWIVES

Especially interesting was this post by one of FMH’s contributors:

"Can we please (as Mormons) just admit that there are SO incredibly many things that we just don’t have a clue about?

[…]

"During my recent (and really my first ‘real’/deep) crisis of faith, I cannot tell you how unhelpful it was when people would pretend that all good/faithful Mormons never question, never wonder, never doubt.

[…]

"Let me tell you what was helpful to me. A former bishop who admitted he’d had periods of doubt also. A friend who acknowledged that my concerns were significant, but didn’t necessarily apologize for their existence (perhaps to do so would be to apologize for the state of the world, the fact of agency, the wisdom of God in sending us all here to work out our salvation?). President Hinckley who at the beginning of his administration stated that he knew respect had to be earned. And a dear husband who all along the way admits his own ignorance along with mine.

"What makes these frank admissions less depressing is a concurrent continued faith — demonstrated in how these people continue to live their lives. Their honesty makes their faith more meaningful to me. They find value in the gospel in spite of — maybe even because of — their doubts and imperfections. And because of their honesty in this, my ‘unbelief’ has been helped. Because of this, I had to address my concerns to God instead of people, since people don’t have all the answers regardless of the faith, knowledge, and goodness that we do have. And as I have begun to do this, I have been reminded of the points of divine help and contact that had been obscured for a time. Yes, I still have doubts and concerns. But I also feel I’ve gotten some significant direction and answers on a couple important issues for me."

GET THE POST.

While Mormonism is a deeply-flawed non-Christian religion, I have to admire the sentiments this particular Mormon is expressing because she makes an important point. Knowing enough to know what you do not know is a powerful witness and, if Socrates was correct, the beginning of wisdom. For Christians and non-Christians alike, that is a crucial lesson.

Buddhist, Jew, Jesus-Freak

I thought I was used to the Gospel According to the Celebrity-Du-Jour mishmash of incompatible spiritualities until I stumbled across an interview with actress Goldie Hawn, in which she describes her spiritual practice as a Buddhist-Jew-Jesus-Freak:

"The interesting part of my spiritual life is studying as much as you can. Islam and Buddhism and Hinduism and Shamanism and Judaism, Christianity — you try to learn what the precepts are, what the religion is, and ultimately, it’s based in the same thought, it’s based in the same outcome, you know.

"(Whispers) It just has a different façade.

"We go into religion in order to feel warmer in our hearts, more connected to others, more connected to something greater and to have a sense of peace. I think all religions try to do that, but they corrupt themselves. I like Buddhist thought because it breaks that down; it teaches you how to view your thoughts rather than be your thoughts. We live in this crazy world, full of jobs, and we have to be there, be-be-be — it’s a very demanding, taxing world. The result of meditating is watching your thoughts, detachment from your own precepts of what is right and wrong, things that frustrate you, that you can’t grasp and want to grasp onto.

[…]

"[Domestic partner and fellow actor Kurt Russell] respects [Hawn’s religious beliefs] and I respect his — but there again, that’s not important because you realize it’s all a subjective belief system. I don’t think ‘Well, I can’ be with somebody who doesn’t believe what I do, or I can’t share my spirituality.’ Your spirituality is shared by your actions and your interconnectedness with your family and everybody else. It’s not conceptual. What’s going to make you whole is your self-reflection and examination of yourself."

GET THE STORY.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have thought Ms. Hawn’s spiritual reflections bloggable. It’s the fuzzy-warm trump of feelings that Hollywood spiritualists specialize in. Same-old, same-old. But this quote caught my attention:

"So I would say that for the rest of my life, everything I do has to be with a mode of ethics, good intentions, for a better result for the people closest to me and to the world around me."

The editors at Beliefnet.com found this pearl important enough to use as a pull-quote and compressed it into the line "For the rest of my life, everything I do has to be with good intentions." Not "everything I do must be good," but the suggestion that it doesn’t matter what you do so long as you have good intentions.

No wonder that the old saw says that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Don’t Smile!

German authorities have decided to wipe the grins off the faces of passport applicants:

"Germans were ordered Thursday to stay serious when having their photographs taken for new passports, wiping away any grins, smirks or smiles so that biometric scanners can pick up their facial features.

"Interior Minister Otto Schily ordered passport authorities to only accept pictures taken from the front showing the ‘most neutral facial expression possible,’ starting Nov. 1.

"Facial recognition systems match key features on the holder’s face and work best when the face has a neutral expression with the mouth closed.

"’A broad smile, however nice it may be, is therefore unacceptable,’ the Interior Ministry said in a statement."

GET THE STORY.

English-speaking photographers have long ordered their subjects to say "Cheese!" before snapping the shot, presumably because saying that word widens the mouth and thus encourages a grin. I wonder what the command to German passport applicants now should be when having their mug shots taken.

The Embryonic Shoah

In the pro-life movement, we’ve heard the figures that some 45 million children have been murdered by abortion in the United States since Roe v. Wade was legalized in 1973. But what about children murdered by the various embryonic manipulation that has occurred since test-tube tinkering started in the late-1970s? (Trivia side note: Did you know that the first test-tube baby was born on the tenth anniversary of the promulgation of Humanae Vitae?  Humanae Vitae was released on July 25, 1968; the first test-tube child was born on July 25, 1978.)

A study by researchers at Yale University found that some 85 percent of cultured embryos do not survive to birth. In-vitro fertilization specialists recently boasted that over a million children have been born due to IVF technology. If both the Yale study and the IVF specialists figures are correct, this means that as many as 6.7 million children have been murdered through embryonic research:

"A new study has confirmed that beyond all the loss of life that happens when in vitro fertilization embryos are frozen for storage and unfrozen for use, there is massive loss of life even after embryos are transferred into their mother’s wombs.

"Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have found that 85 percent of embryos transferred during IVF fail to live till birth.

"IVF specialists boasted last year that over a million children have been born due to IVF (see here: http://www.ivf.com/overview.html). However, with the results of the Yale study indicating that 85% of embryos transferred do not survive till birth, one can calculate that for a million children to have been born using IVF over 6.7 other children died in the process.

"Published in the August issue of Fertility and Sterility, the Yale study reviewed seven years of U.S. statistics from all the fertility clinics that report data on reproductive techniques. Director of the Yale Fertility Center, Pasquale Patrizio, M.D., professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences led the project.

"Said Patrizio, ‘Something in nature has decided that these implanted embryos are not viable.’"

GET THE STORY.

Six million children and counting means that the embryonic manipulation of modern science has placed the death toll in the abortion holocaust at over fifty million. God, have pity on us.

Bloogling

Google, the omnipresent search engine that allows a surfer to navigate the Internet, has announced that it has added a new function that will enable users to search web logs:

"Google Inc. has added to its menu of search alternatives the option to search through the ever-popular online journals called web logs, or blogs.

"The new search service, which went live on Wednesday, is in test, or beta, form, and can be accessed through a variety of Web addresses, including http://www.google.com/blogsearch and http://search.blogger.com/.

"’Google is a strong believer in the self-publishing phenomenon represented by blogging, and we hope Blog Search will help our users to explore the blogging universe more effectively, and perhaps inspire many to join the revolution themselves,’ a frequently-asked-questions (FAQ) page on the new service reads.

"The new service doesn’t limit its searches to Google’s own Blogger service, and the index is continually updated and includes blogs written in English and other languages, including French, Italian, German, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese, according to the FAQ."

GET THE STORY.

Dibs on the credit for describing searching web logs through Google as "bloogling."

Bad Patch Job

Have you ever seen commercials for birth control devices? A series of commercials that particularly annoys me is the one that run for a contraceptive patch that a woman wears on her skin to prevent conception. The commercials that I’ve seen usually feature some hip young female doctor sagely counseling a young woman about the wonders of the patch. Of particular annoyance is the montage of shots of happy women who are delighted with life, presumably because they are customers of the patch. One shot in the montage is of two young girls who can’t be older than twelve.

All is not well in Contraceptive Wonderland, though. The maker of the Ortho Evra patch, Johnson & Johnson, is being sued by a woman who suffered a pulmonary embolism that she asserts was caused by using the patch for seven months.

"Johnson and Johnson’s Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical Inc. unit is being sued on behalf of a woman who had been using the company’s Ortho Evra contraceptive patch.

"The suit, filed by Parker & Waichman LLP, alleges the woman suffered a pulmonary embolism after using the patch for seven months.

"The law firm said Monday, after the financial markets had closed, that recent reports have indicated that the risk of developing blood clots, pulmonary embolism, heart attack and stroke may be significantly higher with the Ortho Evra patch than with oral-contraceptive use.

"The firm alleges that Ortho-McNeill was aware of the increased medical risk and failed to adequately warn patients.

"Ortho Evra was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in April 2002."

GET THE STORY.

Isn’t it interesting how the physical consequences of morally-problematic actions seem to "mirror" the morally-problematic action?

March Of The Red State Penguins

The Gray Lady, in an editorial inexplicably placed in the New York Times‘ Science section, is bemused over the success of the film documentary March of the Penguins, noting in wonder that political conservatives have taken a shine to the film’s affirmation of such traditional values as monogamy and pro-life commitment. After Michael Moore’s anti-America screed Fahrenheit 9/11, March of the Penguins has become the second highest-grossing documentary ever.

"[O]f all the reactions [March of the Penguins] has evoked, perhaps the most surprising is its appeal to conservatives. They are hardly its only audience; the film is the second highest grossing documentary of all time, behind Fahrenheit 9/11" [because, in the World According to the Gray Lady, there are not enough Red Staters to dance on the head of a pin, much less turn a film into a blockbuster].

"But conservative groups have turned its stirring depiction of the mating ordeals of emperor penguins into an unexpected battle anthem in the culture wars" [which liberals didn’t dream of doing with Fahreheit 9/11].

"March of the Penguins, the conservative film critic and radio host Michael Medved said in an interview, is ‘the motion picture this summer that most passionately affirms traditional norms like monogamy, sacrifice and child rearing.’

"Speaking of audiences who feel that movies ignore or belittle such themes, he added: ‘This is the first movie they’ve enjoyed since The Passion of the Christ. This is The "Passion of the Penguins".’ [Weirdly enough, there are sufficient numbers of Red State wackos to turn The Passion of the Christ into a record-breaking megahit — must have been since no one else would dream of contributing to that film’s success, right? — but the Red State wackos don’t have much to with the success of March of the Penguins because it has been too successful to depend on the money of Red State rubes, quoth the Gray Lady.]

"In part, the movie’s appeal to conservatives may lie in its soft-pedaling of topics like evolution and global warming. The filmmakers say they did not consciously avoid those topics — indeed, they say they are strong believers in evolutionary theory — but they add that they wanted to create a film that would reach as many people as possible." ["They wanted to create a film that would reach as many people as possible"? Wow, what a great idea for an industry that depends on audience appeal!]

GET THE STORY.

I haven’t yet seen March of the Penguins myself, but it sounds wonderful.  I’ll have to send the Gray Lady a thank-you note for piquing my interest in this film by appealing to my Inner Conservative.

Do Catholics Read The Bible?

Yes, but not enough of them, say some Catholic biblical experts. Too many Catholics apparently have not gotten the word that the Bible is not the sole domain of the clergy:

"While it may be a best-seller, the Bible still is not regularly read, nor has it become an integral part of many Catholics’ lives, said a panel of biblical experts.

"’Unfortunately, it must be said, there is still little Bible in the lives of the faithful,’ said Italian Bishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Catholic Bible Federation.

"Recent research conducted in Italy, Spain and France found that many Catholics consider the sacred Scriptures as something ‘reserved for the clergy’ rather than as an accessible resource for them to draw upon for truth and inspiration in their own lives, he said.

"Bishop Paglia, together with a number of biblical experts, spoke at a Vatican press conference Sept. 8 to present an upcoming international congress commemorating the 40th anniversary of Dei Verbum, the Second Vatican Council document on Scripture and divine revelation."

GET THE STORY.

On the bright side, Bishop Paglia notes that "It is by listening to the word of God, in fact, that the believer discovers himself to be a disciple and even an apostle, that is, an evangelizer" (emphasis added). Rather than distributing Bibles to Catholics, a la the Gideon Society (a plan that the bishop notes is problematic), a better approach might be to get Catholics back to Mass where they can hear the word of God every Sunday — or better yet, every day.

The Littlest Saint

You may remember the story of the Torres family making the rounds of the Internet. Jason and Susan Torres were expecting their second child when Susan collapsed due to undetected cancer. Susan was kept alive on life support until the child, a little girl, was delivered August 2. Susan died the next day on August 3.

Tragically, little Susan Anne Catherine Torres died in the early-morning hours of Monday, September 12, after emergency intestinal surgery:

"An infant born last month to an unconscious, severely brain-damaged mother has died, the family said Monday.

"Susan Anne Catherine Torres, born prematurely on August 2, died of heart failure Sunday after emergency surgery to repair a perforated intestine, a family statement said.

"A spokeswoman at St. Rita’s Church in Alexandria [Virginia] said parishioners were told of the child’s death during morning Mass."

GET THE (HEARTBREAKING) STORY.

Please keep Jason Torres and his family in prayer.  Their agony must be unimaginable.  You can learn more about the Torres family’s story HERE.

Wanting to find some glimmer of hope in this tragedy, I did a Google search to see if I could find out whether or not the baby had been baptized. I figured she must have been baptized, but wanted to know if I could confirm it. I did.

GET THE (LIFE-AFFIRMING) STORY.

Because this little girl was baptized, we can know — not just hope — that she is a saint now. Susan Anne Catherine Torres, pray for us.

Will The Big One Be Next?

Many have long wondered when The Big One, a massive earthquake long predicted for California, will finally hit. Some are beginning to think it may be Any Day Now:

"U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones remembers attending an emergency training session in August 2001 with the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] that discussed the three most likely catastrophes to strike the United States.

"First on the list was a terrorist attack in New York. Second was a super-strength hurricane hitting New Orleans. Third was a major earthquake on the San Andreas fault.

"Now that the first two have come to pass, she and other earthquake experts are using the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as an opportunity to reassess how California would handle a major temblor."

GET THE STORY.

The good news is that progress in seismic safety has been made. The bad news is that there is still a long way to go before California is prepared to ride out The Big One.

For those of you who are Californians interested in a patron saint to petition, the Patron Saints Index recommends Saints Agatha, Emidius, Francis Borgia, and Gregory Thaumaturgus (aka Gregory the Wonder Worker).   

Saints, Agatha, Emidius, Francis, and Gregory, pray for us.