I am creating a new set of section comments here since I discovered that I can add sections at the top of a page!  That means my latest comments will be first and as you scroll down will be my previous comments.  That should make it easier for those who return to the site and don't have to hunt for the latest comments.  I want to point out that generally my comments have two dates associated with them.  The latest date is the date I put the comment on this website.  An earlier date reflects the date I created the comment in my personal storage.  This may help see that my thinking may have changed somewhat as time has passed if you compare different comments on a related subject.  In any case, I hope this helps understand how I am trying to manage this site since I update it somewhat infrequently. Sorry for any confusion I may cause.

(20250905) I can pick out two times in my life when I was stumped as to how to respond to a question. Many years ago, a good friend looked at me and said: “Why are you a Catholic?”. I couldn’t even mumble a coherent sentence. It did, however, make me think deeply about it, and now many years later I believe I can answer that question. Recently, I was stumped again. A friend asked: “What do you do for fun?” Again, I didn’t have an answer. In thinking about it. I realize that the answer is predicated on being a 20th century Catholic. My thoughts are couched in terms that are somewhat explained in my reflection on Catholic Guilt (may not be indexed yet). Suffice it to say, if I take some time to do something like read secular fact or fiction I am conflicted with feeling I am wasting my time. I could be praying, going to church/adoration, reading scripture, feeding the poor, clothing the naked etc. etc. That is a sure way to take the fun out of anything. Did Jesus ever have fun? Can’t tell from the scripture I read, or homilies I’ve heard. It always interested me that nowhere in scripture did it ever say Jesus Laughed! Did any of his friends ever tell a joke, a fish story? Did he break out in good rollicking laughter? Don’t know, but all I’ve ever heard preached is the Jesus was fully human (as well as fully divine). Fully human and never laughed? This view of God my help explain why me and many others can’t answer the question: “What do you do for fun?”

I am always complaining about the constant noise we are surrounded with. Be it in restaurants, in meetings, and even in church. Silence is a missing element in our lives. Even when going into a restaurant restroom we are surrounded by music. There is no “rest”, in a restroom! It makes me wonder, do people like themselves? Do you enjoy being with yourself? I know that we are not perfect. I can name a number of my characteristics that are not commendable. I know we start our liturgies by saying “I am a sinner.”. However true that is, can we still say, “I do like myself despite my weaknesses”? It all goes back to our world. I am ok with saying the world has serious problems, and that our permanent home is in heaven, which will be perfect. I am not ok with saying the world is bad. At the beginning of scripture almost immediately we hear that what God has created is good. Yes we may have made much of it a mess, but underneath it is still good, because he created it that way. And if we open our eyes to that world and close our eyes to its defects we can still see that God’s world is good. I am blown away but a line in the song “Morning has Broken” that goes : “Sweet the rain’s new fall, Sunlit from heaven, Like the first dewfall on the first grass. Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden, Sprung in completeness Where His feet pass.” To be there when the first sunbeams fell on the newly dewed newly grown grass is to have seen the goodness of creation and the creator. And we would have to stop saying how bad the world is and start working to make it what it is meant to be. And in the silence surrounding that wonder realize that we like ourselves as we have been created. Can you say you like yourself?