Saturday, December 24, 2016

Happy Holidays!

Yes, I've stopped being a crotchety old curmudgeon who obnoxiously insists on saying only Merry Christmas, partly thanks to Celie Sternson Herbst's comments a year or 2 ago. My mother has dementia and is not able to speak. Last Sunday I took her to Mass, and after Mass, she insisted that I take her to CVS, where with a certain amount of pantomiming on her part and guesswork on my part, I helped her pick out 8 things she wanted to buy. At the register, it was a slow transaction due to my mother's condition. Outside, after I put the items in the trunk of my car, I realized that there were 3 items in the cart that we hadn't paid for. I brought them back into the store while my mother waited in the car. Throughout, the cashier, a spirited young man in shoulder-length dreadlocks, could not have been more patient, gracious and polite. Seeing his name tag, I said, "Thank you Khaleed," and he said that I was the first customer to ever pronounce his name properly. Leaving he said, "Happy Holidays!" This in a store where a large proportion of the customers are Jewish, not that that matters--just that he would have no idea what religion, if any I practice. But what did matter was that his wish for a Happy Holidays was sincere and from the heart. And a gift of Grace to me.

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Understanding the Times We Live in

"Nietzsche realized the moral rot that was at the center of so-called Christian culture, and he was unwilling to overlook it."  - Dallas Willard, Professor of Philosophy, Stanford University.

Nietzche v. Jesus Christ

The description of Nietzche's thought is very clear and concise.  Of Jesus, professor Willard invites his listeners to engage and consider.  I happened to listen to the video while reading the chapter titled, "The Suicide of Thought," in Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton.  The video helped me understand Chesterton's comments on Nietzche.