Being Female in Male Institutions
I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.
-Ruth Bader-Ginsberg
Our stories are difficult to share publicly because of the extent to which these institutions and organizations will go to discredit us starts to sound ludicrous to any sane person.
-Catherine Galliford, former RCMP officer
The Times We Live In
“The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology”
Edward Wilson, American sociobiologist at a debate at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in 2009
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
Frank Wilhoit, on the Crooked Timber blog
Salem Witch Hunts
One of my friends told me about a powerful lesson in her daughter’s high school class recently. They’re learning about the Salem Witch Trials, and their teacher told them they were going to play a game.
“I’m going to come around and whisper to each of you whether you’re a witch or a regular person. Your goal is to build the largest group possible that does NOT have a witch in it. At the end, any group found to include a witch gets a failing grade.”
The teens dove into grilling each other. One fairly large group formed, but most of the students broke into small, exclusive groups, turning away anyone they thought gave off even a hint of guilt.
“Okay,” the teacher said. “You’ve got your groups. Time to find out which ones fail. All witches, please raise your hands.”
No one raised a hand.
The kids were confused and told the teacher he’d messed up the game. “Did I? Was anyone in Salem an actual witch? Or did everyone just believe what they’d been told?”
And that is how you teach kids how easy it is to divide a community.
Shunning, scapegoating and dividing destroys far more than they protect. There’s plenty of it going around. Do not allow the political elite (Bishops, Big Tech, algorithms) to divide and destroy us. We must remain united against those who would do so.
Trauma Recovery
“When it comes to injustice, silence is not a virtue; it is a vice two times compounded because it contains both indifference to the victims and complicity with the destroyers.”
-Diane Langberg
“People who have been abused have been saturated with evil, lies, manipulation, humiliation, and rage. How they need to sit with the loving and truthful character of the Father in you! They do not just need to hear about it. They need to experience it in you, in the flesh.”
-Diane Langberg
cPTSD is not a result of not handling things well. It’s a result of continually experiencing things your mind and body weren’t made for.
-Someone on X
“Maybe my seemingly unproductive, looking-up-at-Him life produces awe among the angels.”
-Unseen: The Gift of Being Hidden in a World That Loves to Be Noticed by Sara Hagerty
Spiritual
People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.
-Mother Teresa
Sacred Heart of Jesus, filled with infinite love, broken by my ingratitude, pierced by sins, yet loving me still…accept the consecration that I make to You, of all that I am and all that I have.Take every faculty of my soul and body, and draw me, day by day, nearer and nearer to your Sacred Side, and there, as I can bear the lesson, teach me Your blessed ways.
I committed this one to memory and worked with it at Adoration for about two years, before water baptism. What was behind the concept of consecration; this piqued my interest.
Up until very recently, I deeply regretted cultivating this sentiment in my core; I am sure it brought about what happened to me and I would rather not have gone through it. Be careful what you ask for!
Whenever I consider Jesus of Nazareth in these contemplative activities, I wondered what that meant to people in the past; Savior, Messiah, Redeemer? What do those words mean in Latin, Greek and Hebrew? And Christ meant the Source, the Creator? Why did everyone sign their emails JMJ? I didn’t appreciate the Sacred Heart of Jesus or Immaculate Heart of Mary for a long time. What good is RCIA if it doesn’t laboriously unpack Catholic interiority? Sacraments work best on prepared soil. Why would people continue to come for the Eucharist unless they are growing in understanding, if not from homilies in the parish but through their own reading and contemplation? I’ve always viewed the Eucharist (with everything it means) as grist for my mill.
I ask Catholics (not priests!): What has poor or non-existent adult catechesis in your generation meant for our collective conscience, for ethics, for our non-spiritual but mechanized and profit-driven world? Why have religious practices died off in the West? Are they only for children? A Sacramental religion makes the invisible visible – then what? Can a dodgy, misunderstood supernatural be useful as a foundation for the moral imagination of adults?
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known …
I suppose the Memorare should be here because that is one of the Official Catholic Church Inc prayers that the powers that be are pushing, but I’m not a child, and I’m doing this shit anymore. I like what I like, my inner life is private and my days of doing what priests tell me to out of respect for Catholic Tradition are over.
The most evident mark of God’s anger and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world are manifested when He permits His people to fall into the hands of clerics who are priests more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than the charity and affection of devoted shepherds.
-St. John Eudes
Historical, miscellaneous quotes
Creativity as Divine intimacy flows through us and is bigger than we are, urging us to go to the edge and grow larger. And our growth in turn delights God.
-Matthew Fox
“An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.”
– Dr. Viktor Frankl
“Never argue with stupid people. They’ll drag you down and beat you with experience.”
– Mark Twain