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My wife gave me a familiar 'did you really say that?' look a few days ago, after I said I didn't understand why so many folks are upset about current events. She had, as usual, reason on her side. I've gotten upset, a lot. I'm pretty much the opposite of phlegmatic . But I don't see much point in contemplating cracked mirrors, or taking my cue from Yeats: " ...The mirror crack'd from side to side; 'The curse is come upon me,' cried The Lady of Shalott.... " (" The Lady of Shalott ," Tennyson (1842)) " ...Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. " Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand.... " (" The Second Coming ," William Butler Yeats (1920)) ...Like quite a few other folks at the time, Yeats w

A young man joined a Wednesday evening Bible study group at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, earlier this week After participating for about an hour, he killed nine of the folks there and left. I'm angry, and sad, that nine lives were unjustifiably ended in that church: and am profoundly impressed at the calm shown by some of the victims' relatives. In my considered opinion, what the young man did was wrong. I'll get back to why I think that's true: and what I'm doing about my anger and sorrow. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Folks have looked up and been impressed for a long time: " 1 Think! The heavens, even the highest heavens, belong to the LORD, your God, as well as the earth and everything on it. " ( Deuteronomy 10:14 ) " The heavens declare the glory of God; the sky proclaims its builder's craft. " ( Psalms 19:2 ) That galaxy is M31, the Andromeda Galaxy . Back when I was in high school, a fair number of books I read called it the "Great Andromeda Nebula." More up-to-date books occasionally called it an "island universe." More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

As I'm writing this, 19 folks in France have died because — it's complicated. Assuming that the Kouachi brothers had religious motives for killing folks at the Charlie Hebdo offices is, I think, reasonable: but it's an assumption. Assuming that Charlie Hebdo's distinctly irreverent treatment of Islam led to this week's attack is — that's complicated, too.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

My father reminded me of this good advice when I was in my teens: "...whatever is true, ... whatever is lovely, ... think about these things." My response was something like '...because they won't last.' I wasn't happy about saying that at the time. Decades later, I still regret the statement. I can't, of course, undo what was done: and the time for telling my father "I'm sorry" has long since passed. In any case, I said "I'm sorry" too often, and that's almost another topic. That quote is from today's second reading, Philippians 4:6 - 9 . I'll get back to that. Today, thanks to very powerful antidepressants and a few other psychoactive prescriptions, I no longer have to fight the controls to make my brain work. I even have moments when I feel good about who I am and what I do. That's a nice change of pace.... Joy, Zest, and Mud As it is, I had an opportunity to reason my way out of suicide : and dev

(From Peter Kennett, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.) (M31, the Great Andromeda Galaxy, one of 54 galaxies in the Local Group , photographed in 2005.) Folks can see the Andromeda Galaxy from Earth's northern hemisphere: on a clear night with no moon, anyway. Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi gets credit for 'discovering' it: but I'm pretty sure that quite a few folks had seen it before he mentioned "A Little Cloud" in " Book of Fixed Stars, " somewhere around 964. Knowledge and Change In 1764, Charles Messier, another astronomer, put the galaxy in his catalog as a nebula: object M31. By the 19th century, astronomers realized that some light from the Andromeda "nebula" resembled light from stars. In 1925, Edwin Hubble used observations of Cepheid variable stars to demonstrate that the Andromeda Galaxy was another " island universe :" far outside our Milky Way Galaxy. Light from the Andromeda Galaxy passing Earth toda