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  I don’t know, I guess I have a bit of a critical eye when it comes to ethics. We received an advertisement in the mail the other day from a local realtor.   She was advertising before and after pictures of a house.   Now we all know that when you go to sell your house, you want it to look the best it can.   It is not uncommon to make improvements so it has “curb appeal.”   I’ve even heard of someone who spray painted a sink so it didn’t show the rust (which I think is a bit sneaky). There are some things that are acceptable, of course, like the curb appeal approach, but, this advertisement went to far, I think.   It crossed a line into deception. The picture of the house on the left has a brown front yard.   The same house on the right has a full, beautiful, green front lawn.   Here’s my problem . . . the green lawn was photo-shopped into the picture. The advertisement boasts of their in-house photographer who can make “brown grass green and grey skies blue.”   They brag ab

Life isn't back to normal, here in Sauk Centre, and won't be. Not if I see "back to normal" as "being just exactly the way it was two years ago." Time and reality don't work that way. At any, life may not be back to normal; but this fifth Sunday of Easter is less not-normal than last year's. The COVID-19 pandemic is still in progress, but regional rules — state and church — are relaxing a tad. Partly, maybe mostly, because mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are not just in the pipeline. They're here. And that's another topic. Topics. At any rate, life and my routines are less not-normal than they were at this time last year. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

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Do you have a problem with being a bit controlling?   Maybe you are tempted to control your adult children, or perhaps your controlling is more related to always correcting the errors of others? There are people who, out of the need for control, desperately pay too much attention to detail and try to make sure that their ducks (and the ducks of others) are not only lined up in a neat row, but that they quack at the same time, and on key. I should correct myself.   I’m not so sure anyone actually has a “need” to control others.   I think this—can I call it a character flaw?—is often just part of one’s personality.   Sometimes it comes from cultural circumstances like family or the way they have been treated.   Adult children of alcoholics, for instance, may tend to try to control their situations (and others) because living with an alcoholic can be chaotic and the very definition of being out-of-control.   Circumstances themselves may create “control freaks”—an unkind, overly ne

The Red Vineyard Vincent van Gogh [ Web Gallery of Art ] Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel   John 15:1-8     (English Standard Version, Anglicised) Jesus said to his disciples: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser.   Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.   Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.   Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.   I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.   If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.  

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         El evento de la Pandemia y de la nueva dinámica que parece haber traído no parece tener lógica ni sitio en nuestro vivir, todo se ve gris y ya hasta se habla del "Gran Reinicio" . Por eso debemos verlas en un horizonte más amplio de nuestro mundo y nuestro tiempo y esta entrevista de López Dóriga hace eso: una evaluación muy real de lo que está sucediendo y que nos deja ver que seguimos esperando que algún invento, sistema o evento nos salve. Nos hace ver lo que Jesús en la fe católica nos ha dicho por siglos: que la felicidad y el bienestar lo tenemos que construir desde nuestro interior, en el alma, en el corazón. En ese lugar donde está Dios esperándodnos desde siempre para ayudarnos a construir una vida plena a prueba de las mareas de la historia y el mundo, junto a los demás.   Vale la pena escucharlo y aplicar varias de las recomendaciones que nos da para esta época:     Por:  Dr. José Antonio Lozano Díez, Presidente de la Junta de Gobierno de la Un

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  I was in the middle of a book by Father John Riccardo titled Rescued (which is very good) and a thought struck me. I’m big on evangelization and the importance of helping people see the necessity of coming to Christ.   The Good News.   Salvation.   Eternal life.   All of it. But, when you work in ministry, especially with an eye towards evangelization, you sort of get stuck in this line of questioning . . .   How do you let others know the beauty of faith?   How do you inspire them to seek baptism?   When life is so busy and people are pulled in so many directions, how do you help them see that life is meaningless without God? So, in the middle of the book I had his thought . . . Sometimes I start reading a book and just cannot keep going.   Either I find the book uninteresting, irrelevant, or I’d simply rather be doing something else. Then, down the road, I may pick up that book again, and because my circumstances have changed, or my interests, or my needs, I begin to