With all the mowing, trimming, cutting, hauling, collecting, sorting — this is all I’ve got for the day: the bushes I assaulted with a trimmer.
One-Picture Day
Month: June 2023
Pride
Conservative Christians on social media are having fits about Pride Month. They like to point out that pride was, in their view, the original sin of the angels. Never mind that this notion owes more to Milton and Paradise Lost than to anything in the Bible — once something gets in the conservative Christian psyche, it’s hard to shake it out.
But no conservative Christian is as upset about Pride Month as Catholics, because June is dedicated to the “Sacred Heart of Jesus.” Conservative Catholics are upset about this, suggesting Catholics need to “reclaim the month.”
I’m curious how they see this working exactly. Do they expect that in “reclaiming the month,” they can convince masses of people to abandon Pride Month and embrace this idea? Most non-Catholic Christians have never heard of this notion of the “Scared Heart of Jesus.” They might ask, “What about his other internal organs? Is there a month of the Sacred Spleen of Jesus, too?”
The Catholic Culture website explains it thusly:
Understood in the light of the Scriptures, the term “Sacred Heart of Jesus” denotes the entire mystery of Christ, the totality of his being, and his person considered in its most intimate essential: Son of God, uncreated wisdom; infinite charity, principal of the salvation and sanctification of mankind. The “Sacred Heart” is Christ, the Word Incarnate, Saviour, intrinsically containing, in the Spirit, an infinite divine-human love for the Father and for his brothers.
“Month of the Sacred Heart“
I don’t think it will sell in 2023…
Berries Approaching
Soon — very soon…
Pressuring Washing Monopoly Blueberries
There is a tsunami approaching: we got the first hints today. Hidden here and there among the pale blue berries are a few dark, ripe ones. There were not many this morning, but there were enough to fill a small cup. What awaits us, though, is overwhelming — in the most positive way, to be sure, but overwhelming nonetheless.
We picked them after we spent a bit of time blasting off the last bit of paint on the ramp that leads to our side entrance.
It was the ramp we built to help us get Nana and Papa into their new quarters a little over four years ago. We don’t have much need for it now — we could survive with a simple path and a couple of steps, but of course, we would never go through the time and expense of taking out the ramp and putting in a walkway in. As with the walk-in shower, it’s a reminder of a time now gone, of family now gone, of times never to return.
And so, as if almost in an unconscious effort to make the most of the times we have together, we did something we haven’t done as a family in a while: play a board game. L, of course, won — she almost always wins. The Boy came in last, as he frequently and sadly does. K and I, not worrying about who’s winning or losing as the game progresses, end up in the middle.
A perfect evening in the middle of the week. We need more of them.
Paint Peeling
We’ll definitely be doing some repainting this summer…
Prayer Before Praying
Nothing could epitomize better the sense of worthlessness that Catholicism instills in its believers than this “prayer before praying.” In it, the penitent admits that even when praying, when doing what the god of the Bible commands, he’s a worthless pile of nonsense, and without a little bit of Jesus’ blood smeared on his lips, he would say the most outrageous things…
But then there’s the eternal problem with such things: if there should be a prayer before praying, shouldn’t there be a prayer before praying the prayer before praying? And logically, shouldn’t there be a prayer before praying the prayer before praying the prayer before praying? If nothing I say is worth saying without praying beforehand, and even that prayer is not worthy of anything other than scorn because I’m some useless shit of a sinner, shouldn’t I just play it safe and keep my mouth shut?
Grilling
K is turning dinner over to me over the summer. Time to fire up the grill!
Our Saturday, Their Saturday
Last Day 2023
Eighth-Grade Day
