This came to me after reading the blog “Stuff White People Like.”

Most people are in search of being validated in their search for love and their desire to be recognised for their unique unrepeatability (apparently, my phrase of the week).  People don’t want to be loved as part of a generic group, they want to be loved for themselves.  The cry of our hearts is not “Love us!” but “Love ME!”  And the Lord does.  As I have heard *someone* 🙂 say a time or two, “God loves us each…individually…by name.”

 So, how does this relate to this website?  Well, certainly there is an element of truth to the funny and stereotypical things posted on the blog.  Is it so foreign to think that “white” can be a category?  But that is what tends to happen in our culture — we tend to think of “white” as the default.  Not that this is a good or a bad default, but that it is often the base assumption if no other descriptor is given.  For example, people are often described as being Black-American, Hispanic-American or Chinese-American; but how many people are described as White-American?  It is quite often commented that in not assigning a specific descriptor to this group, and using it as a baseline assumption, that there is a danger in tacitly advocating a racial agenda — and there is some validity to that line of thought.

But, for a moment, let’s sidestep that issue.  The fundamental reality is that all people are made in the image and likeness of God and are equally loved and valued in His eyes.  No matter what.  Our classifications and ranking and dominating behavior and marginalizations are all sins against His plan for our unity and our purpose for communion.  We are made for communion; we are made for love.

 What is happening then, as evidenced by this tongue-in-cheek blog?  White-Americans are trying to find a cultural identity.  At least, it appears this way to me on the surface.  Instead of being lumped together into the “generic” category, this subset is trying to find a way to express their own unique unrepeatability, and find a way to stand out from the homogenous crowd.  Perhaps this is why so many people are quick to make regional/national affiliation statements like “I’m Italian,” or Irish, or French, or German, etc.

I remember myself as a kid growing up, I was a little upset that my cousin was an “Italian Princess” because her father was from Italy — and I was not.  When I asked her what, then, was I?  She just shrugged and said, “I don’t know.  You’re just white, I guess.”  I thought this was horribly unfair.  I wanted to be “special” too!

How silly are we all?  We all *are* special.  Again, God loves us.  Each of us.  Specifically and uniquely *you* and specifically and uniquely *me*.  And how silly are we trying to apply labels and groupings to ourselves to try and be “more special” or “different” or “unique,” in an effort to — what?  Stand out from the crowd?  Gain love for ourselves?  To have the cry of “Love ME!” be answered?  Ha!  It HAS been answered!  With a definitive, “I do.  I love YOU!”  Christ did not die on the cross for humanity as a faceless mob.  Christ died specifically for *ME* and specifically for *YOU*.

In my own personal journey, I have a long way to go to correct some of my wrong thinking.  As I have said before, I think God has been trying to give me a message that goes something like this:  “Do not grasp for what is being freely given.”  Meaning that I should stop trying so hard to try and get God and other people to love me — for they love me already.  I just have to be open to recognizing and accepting this.  And this is not an easy thing for me to do.  And, this grasping, isn’t that exactly what caused the Fall of Adam and Eve?  Here it was God’s plan already to share in His divine nature with Adam and Eve, but they readily accepted the insinuations of the Serpent that God might be holding out on them, so they decided to reach out and grasp for that divinity themselves.  So, if this grasping on their part was the cause of so much sin to enter the world, then I certainly have reason to try and eradicate that part of my nature from myself.

Okay, it was a short spree.  🙂

 I woke up this morning feeling moderately yukki.  Definitely worse than yesterday.  Which is a good thing.  My immune system is working on whatever bug this may be.  (Dr. Knol confirmed that it was NOT strep.  Perhaps it is something like the African Sleeping Sickness — always a favorite, or Lassa Fever:

There is a range of laboratory investigations that are performed to diagnose the disease and assess its course and complications. ELISA test for antigen and IgM antibodies gives 88% sensitivity and 90% specificity for the presence of the infection. Other laboratory findings in Lassa fever include lymphopenia (low white blood cell count), thrombocytopenia (low platelets), and elevated aspartate aminotransferase (AST) levels in the blood.

Hmm….  I *HAVE* had bleeding issues and flunked my liver tests….)

Anyway…..  Getting away from my fascination with virology….

I went to Mass, trying not to share my little virii with everyone (wouldn’t want the Sign of Peace to become the Sign of the Plague); grabbed a Starbucks (completely therapeutic, really); drove to Ann Arbor; taught photography; ran out of and bought more windshield wiper fluid (Ah, here’s where the big spending begins.  My brother will be ecstatic to know that my windshield wiper fluid has a drawing of a superhero on it.); went to Our Lady of Grace Bookstore at DF, where I plagued the poor boy at the counter by browsing endlessly, but ended up walking out with 3 items (“Are you [FINALLY] ready to check out?”); drove back to Troy; got a haircut (more on that after this paragraph); came home; made Charred Cheese Sandwich and tomato soup (isn’t that supposed to be Grilled Cheese Sandwich?  Yeah, yeah, rub it in, mine had char…); read half of one of the books I had purchased; got a phone call; texted two friends; got bored playing on the internet for a few minutes; danced in the living room until I couldn’t breathe any more and felt that my head was on fire; drank my 6 oz of Gatorade, and stuck the rest in the fridge — wouldn’t want to be hydrated, now would we?; decided to work on some work; decided to check out Amazon.com first; bought stuff on Amazon; thought that I should probably get to that work before it got too late and I didn’t do it; and decided I should post on my blog. 

And now you see where I am, neither getting work done, nor resting to get better.  Rather, bouncing about the house like a Ping-Pong ball, until I collapse at some point this evening.  Ah, well.  If it makes you feel any better, I’m also reading about 9 books at the same time.  Perhaps I have a little ADHD.

So…  $2-3 on wiper fluid, $5 on crack (Starbucks), $20 at OLG, $50 on Amazon, $43 for a haircut — for a grand total of approximately $121.  Amazingly, that did not appear to have any effect on my sickness whatsoever.  As a small justification, all of my purchases from OLG and Amazon had to do with Theology….  That’s a good use of money, right?  (This is where you all agree with me….)  And the haircut….  Let’s talk about that expensive haircut….

Okay, I really don’t care about my hair.  I have hacked it off, blindly, just before midnight, dry and without looking to make sure that it’s even — about 6 inches that time — gone!  It’s been the color of Tang, cinnamon, and back to it’s normal brown/black.  If I go somewhere to get it cut, instead of doing it myself, I usually head for the cheapest place I can find.  Well, not today.  I suppose that even I have to act like a girl every once in a while, particularly when I feel like I could star in a horror flick — as the monster.  So, I told the girl that as long as she cut my bangs so that I could see again, I didn’t particularly care what she did with the rest of it.

We talked as she worked, and turns out she was baptized, but hasn’t finished her sacraments, so we talked about RCIA and she may join us in the fall!  How cool is that!  She walked me out as I left and gave me a big hug and wished me a good rest of the day!  🙂  So, it was an expensive haircut (for me), but totally worth it.  I’m glad I decided to go there today.

Yesterday, I went to downtown Royal Oak to my aunt’s pizzeria for my cousin’s 13th birthday party.  I was late, since I had gone to Reconciliation and then Mass.  I mentioned to my brother that I went to Confession, and he said, “You sinned again?”  I replied, “Yes.  It’s even possible that I sinned since confession.”  Then, his response:

“Yes!  That’s my girl!  I’m so proud of you!”

Um…..

Forgive him, Father, for he knows not what he does.

And, we were raised atheist, so I really believe that it comes from ignorance of God and not a willing, informed rejection.  It’s like a game, and for him, it’s just fun to be the “bad one.”  God is like leprechauns or the Easter bunny or something to him.  Not real.  The worst part is he is so funny.   Not what he says, for that gets rather bad quite quickly, but the way in which he says it.

I’m just not sure whether to pray that he comes to know God, or to pray that he is and remains “invincibly ignorant.”  Is he?

Yesterday, I went to a catechist training on the sacraments.  Patty asked 7 people to go up and say a prayer regarding one of the 7 sacraments.  She asked the girl standing next to me to do Eucharist, and me to do Penance.  I say (within her earshot), “Notice how she picked *me* to read for Penance.”  Patty replies, “There might be a reason for that.”  !!!!!

Okay, so today’s Gospel is all about David’s sin with Bathsheba. 

So, do you think that God’s trying to tell me something????  Maybe I should go to confession tomorrow….

I just had to add this to my blog.  It is my response to someone’s post.  Somehow, I can’t resist sticking my foot in my mouth at any given opportunity…. 

Just a couple of notes regarding:

“for male homosexuals, there is the additional incentive of a rather closed men’s community where they need not prove themselves as men; …. and in the catholic and russian orthodox churches, there is the attraction of the garments and the aesthetic rituals, which male homosexuals may, in their childish perception, experience as feminine and which enable a narcissistic showing off, comparable to the exhibitionist joys of homosexual ballet dancers …. These interests stem for the most part, then, from an infantile, self-centered imagination and have precious little to do with the objective contents of Christian belief.”

Okay,  1) no matter if you are homosexual or heterosexual, in the course of your ministry, you may be placed in situations where you may be tempted.  Temptation exists everywhere, inside and outside of the priesthood.  We are all called to chastity, whether we are ordained, married, or single.  I don’t necessarily believe that it is a different issue for a heterosexual man to refrain from engaging in illicit activities with a woman, than for a homosexual man to refrain from engaging in illicit activities with a man.  Again, isn’t it supposed to be about your *will* and not your *emotions*?

2)”rather closed men’s community where they need not prove themselves as men” – Well, I can’t say with any type of authority, but I would imagine that whenever you have a community, you will have people looking at whether or not you live with integrity.  Is the author here referring to some public display of machismo as the “proof” that might be required or not?  I don’t know about you, but for me, the priests that I know are perhaps some of the strongest men, real men and an incredible credit to their gender, that I have met.

3)  It appears that this author is reducing all people who have homosexual inclinations to people who are childish and feminine, and that they are caught up in narcissism and are unable to control their “urges.”  I would submit that we all have disordered thinking to one degree or the other and that temptations to pride, irreverence and narcissism are not solely reserved for this population.  It sounds an awful lot to me like a stereotypical judging, and not like a reasoned loving of our neighbor, this statement.

Shouldn’t we give each individual our love and respect as a child of God with his own innate dignity?  After all, we are all sinners.

Update:  I knew I should have linked to the original post, but in my HTML suckage, I am forgetting how to make a link.

Here’s to the initial blog post that I was reading:  Orthometer

And, here’s to the blog post that was referenced in the initial post — the one I actually responded to:  Abbey Roads

Oh, my poor maligned character!

I go into my one surgeon’s office, complaining that I am de-evolving into an alligator.  I don’t *actually* believe that, but I am annoyed with this odd skin thing.  I’m on my 4th diagnosis, and they just shrug and say probably some form of eczema and give me steroids for when it gets really bad.  Other leading things I accuse it of being are:

1.  Allergy to winter (since it gets worse when the weather gets cold)

2.  Leprosy (it’s not, so don’t try to kick me out of church!  🙂 )

My doctor says, “Oh, I thought it was a hickey you got from the tool.”  (I probably shouldn’t have introduced him to the term “tool.”)  After my emphatic denial, he says, “That’s what I thought, but I didn’t want to ask.”

Please.  As if I would just go out and do things like that with some random boy!

Okay, by now, many of you will know that I have a particular aversion to e-mail forwards.  That said, occasionally I will pass one on because it is particularly cute or profound.  This one, while a decent message, is being posted because, well, I love God, and I have a certain fondness for coffee (no, really, I do!  Who would have thought?  :P), and I couldn’t pass it up.

Now, if only coffee were used more often as a metaphor for theological teachings….  🙂 

God’s Coffee

A group of alumni, all highly established in their respective careers, got together for a visit with their old university professor. The conversation soon turned to complaints about the endless stress of work and life in general …Offering his guests coffee, the professor went into the kitchen and soon returned with a large pot of coffee and an eclectic assortment of cups: porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal – some plain, some expensive, some quite exquisite. Quietly he told them to help themselves to some fresh coffee.. When each of his former students had a cup of coffee in hand, the old professor quietly cleared his throat and began to patiently address the small gathering …

”You may have noticed that all of the nicer looking cups were taken up first, leaving behind the plainer and cheaper ones. While it is only natural for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is actually the source of much of your stress-related problems.” He continued …”Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In fact, the cup merely disguises or dresses up what we drink. What each of you really wanted was coffee, not a cup, but you  instinctively went for the best cups” … Then you began eyeing each other’s cups ….”

”Now consider this:  Life is coffee. Jobs, money, and position in society are merely cups. They are just tools to shape and contain Life, and the type of cup we have does not truly define nor change the quality of the Life we live. Often, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee that God has provided us … God brews the coffee, but he does not supply the cups. 

“Enjoy your coffee!”  The happiest people don’t have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything they have ….

So please remember: Live simply. Love generously. Care Deeply. Speak Kindly. Leave the Rest to God.

And remember – the richest person is not the one who has the most, but the one who needs the least.

“Integrity is doing the right thing, even if nobody is watching.” — Jim Stoval

“Do all the good you can, and make as little fuss about it as possible.” –Charles Dickens