Category: Catholic Topics

7 Quick Takes: Troublemakers

The Land of 700 Takes.

1.

It’s the end of the Catholic Writer’s Conference Online, and I had a reader here take me to task for not publicizing it enough.  (“Conference? What conference?”).  So I’m going to fix that.

2.

The thing is this:  A year ago, Mike Hays and I were making trouble at Sarah Reinhard’s otherwise very civilized blogging workshop.  We were saying things like, “And the CWG ought to have a blog!  And Mike will pray once a week! And Jen is willing to help! Because she always volunteers for things, even though she has no time, but this time she really thinks she should!”

3.

And someone took us up on it.  Ann Lewis presented me with a newborn blog, and said, “Here you go, find writers.”   Mike’s led prayers over at CWG every week since.  He rocks.

4.

So anyway, what you need to know is that if you’re a Catholic writer, you really ought to check out the Catholic Writers Guild.  And if you’re a Christian writer of any flavor, join us all through April for 30K for Christ.  There’s a 30K for Christ forum for CWG members, and non-members are encouraged to check-in at the blog with progress reports, or join in via Twitter following top-secret instructions Sarah Reinhard’s going to decode and make public by Sunday.

Meanwhile, you should steal this stylish 30K Logo so that everyone knows you aren’t just writing stuff, you’re on a mission:

5.

Allie Hathaway’s a Catholic writer.  Pray for her.  Thanks.

6.

Of the 7,000 cool things I learned at the online conference, my favorite is this:

Sr. Marie Paul Curley is Jim Curley’s sister.  That’s why she looks so happy in her profile pics on her blog.  If you weren’t already reading her blog, now’s the time to start.

And in news culled from that blog: Act One is accepting applications for the coming year?  Yes? Still open?  I don’t see a deadline.

But I do see this: A casting call for ex-Christians, disaffected Christians, and people who just don’t do organized religion:

SUBMISSION DEADLINE IS APRIL 4, 2012. Project is unpaid, but participants will receive copy, credit, and reimbursement for production-related costs.

ABOUT YOU LOST ME

With You Lost Me, Barna Group researcher David Kinnaman shows why younger Christians are leaving the church and rethinking their faith. Through research and statistics, Kinnaman shows how pastors, church leaders and parents have failed to equip young people and how this has serious consequences. Those disconnected from the church are not statistics, says Kinnaman — they are people with real stories. You Lost Me, in part, is a challenge to the church to slow down and listen to those who consider themselves outsiders.

FYI for those who rightly worry about these things, Act One has made it’s mark as an outspoken criticism of the sugary 3rd-rate rah-rah-rah team brand of inane Christian programming.  So this looks promising.

7.

And now I’m going to Aldi. Wait!  No I’m not! The kids made a list . . . and we all forgot! The truck’s in the shop!  Ack.  Leaky hose.  It’ll be home soon I hope.  Good thing our idea of “out of groceries” involves still owning large amounts of food.

And tomorrow: Taxes.  I’d better get a head start since I’ll have to do grocery run tomorrow. Do you know what my #1 writing rule is?  If you can’t write as clearly as the IRS, you should be fired.

7.5

Whoa!  What’s with the website redesign at IRS??? Ack.  It’s colorful. Bright.  Cheesy photos of satisfied customers.  NOOOOOO!  I want my boring soothing, orderly accountant-blue back.  Nooooooo!

 

Have a great weekend.

7 Quick Takes: The Path of Least Resistance

A whole weekend's worth of entertainment at your fingertips. Click to read more.

1.

The 4th grade science book had this explanation of charge (negative, positive, etc) that was just not computing with a certain child. Trying to figure out how to explain what the girl needed to know was going to take more brain power than I wished to exert.  So I fetched the boy’s old snap circuit kit, and said, “Read the directions, make a couple of these, and then we’ll talk.”

She loves them.  She’s made maybe twenty of the projects now.

And the SuperHusband came home and explained the habits of those wiley electrons in terms we could all understand.

2.

In his explanations, he observed electrons are a lot like people.  Certain children, for example, would much rather we evenly populate the rooms of the house, than have three girls crowded together in one bedroom.  It was an analogy our people-person girl grasped immediately.

3.

On the evening walk after dinner, Mr. Boy proposed seminars that run the opposite direction.  “People Skills for Engineers”, for example.  In which you explain that people are a lot like electrons.

4.

Every time your blood pressure spikes from reading about offensive jury verdicts in which parents are paid millions to publicly wish their children dead, Allie Hathaway’s the perfect choice for your offering up. Have I mentioned that reading the news is a near occasion of sin for me?  You might have noticed.

5.

Benadryl season, here.  I ran out of the liquid.  Seven-year-old had dark circles under her eyes, perpetual sneezing, and was losing her voice.  But the pill.  It doesn’t want to go down.

Until I remembered this stuff:

Now she’s very punctual in reminding me when she needs her next dose.

6.

We weren’t sure whether our dog would get along with our friends’ dogs during the pending staycation, in which all Fitz creatures under a certain age vacate castle premises for the weekend.  So we ran a test the other day.  One of the host dogs was not pleased at the arrival of the guest dog, and our pup insisted on saying a few pointed words back .  The altercation slowly edged them towards the pool.

Our dog, unaware she was backing up towards the water, fell right in.  She swam to the side, and my friend showed her the way up the steps.

And after that, the dogs got along just fine.

7.

And with that, I’m out of here, and offline, until sometime Monday.  Think I might send the telephone off with the kids, too.  Have a great weekend!

***

UPDATE: Thank You Facebook Helpers.  The new page name is: www.facebook.com/JenFitz.writes.  You guys are the best.

(Meanwhile SuperHusband and I are enjoying an eerily silent weekend.  I’ll check back at the combox and all that come Monday, or whenever we lose our un-plugged concentration and just have to ignore each other for a while.)

7 Quick Takes: Lucky Women

Where is the brain? The other Jen F. wants to know. Trust me, it's not here.

1.

It’s been a long few days here at the Castle.  I would be very grateful for your prayers.

2.

This is hilarious: “Teach Yourself a New Culture in 100 Easy Lessons”, in which we see how a Haitian man studying English describes the pictures in the reading book.  I want the whole series.

 

3.

Lent report:

1) Yeah, we pretty much stink at prayer-n-fasting.  Especially when housework is supposed to fit in their somewhere.

2) But I did have an Adrian Monk Moment, and clean the yard in a frenzied response to stress and frustration.  It looks really nice.  Or it did 24 hours ago, anyhow.

3) And then here’s what happened: We planned to meet Fr. W for lunch because after six months of trying, dinner just wasn’t happening.  Too busy.  And we decided that ‘at the restuarant’ was smarter than ‘at our house’.  And this morning I thought, “Yes, I’m so glad it’s at the restaurant, because this place is a wreck.”  And then I realized: “This place is waaaaay cleaner then the first time he came over last summer.  For one thing, at this time I would not need to send the children out on an hour-long mission to “get rid of the disgusting things”.

So, yes.  Progress.  Not as stellar of progress as my vivid imagination had envisioned.  But it’s something.

The Fitz House, Now 75% Less Disgusting!

4.

You thought you could just pray for my intention up there in #1. No can do.   Allie Hathaway. Right now. 

. . . Okay good. Thanks!

5.

Helen Alvare e-mailed me (and 18,000 of her closest friends, I’m pretty sure) with the reminder that:

 . . . The Obama Administration has put real accommodation of religious employers, insurers, and individuals off the table. And they have managed to get leading media to continue to claim that women are on the side of shutting down religious witness on the issue of the “free” birth control in employer insurance plans.

If you’re female and you haven’t signed the Women Speak for Themselves letter, do it now, here.

And this the Facebook page:  facebook.com/WomenSpeakForThemselves.

[H/T to the inimitable Mrs. Tollefsen for the head’s up about the letter and the encouragement to sign it.  They let me on, so they’ll take anybody.]

6.

Bearing links to a really cool history article on eugenics, politics, and the Irish in 1940.  Click on her link and read the whole thing — very well-researched and written account of a suspicious marriage certificate, and the man who made it so, 52 years after the wedding took place.  For that matter, if you’re having withdrawal because you don’t like how my 3-D life is interfering with your goofing-off schedule, Bearing’s been pretty much rocking the house lately, so you just go read her for a while.

7.

And that’s it.   Catholic Writer’s Conference starts tomorrow.  My yard is clean.  My blog is sad and lonely.  The weather is beautiful.  My truck is pale yellow from the pine pollen.  My 5 year-old has a new green plaid outfit made by her 10-year-old sister from scrap fabric, just in time to keep the neighbor kid from pinching her tomorrow.   I have given up all hope of predicting the future, and now consider my calendar to be a work of speculative fiction.

Oh speaking of saint’s feast days, last night I read the account of St. Abraham Kidunaia.  And I thought as I read, “Gee, his poor fiance, abandoned on the eve of the wedding, when he fled to the desert and locked himself in a cell.”  And then I read a little further, and concluded: “Probably once she learned he was planning to wear the same goatskin coat for the next 50 years, she was okay with it.”

 

3.5 Time Outs: Reading, Writing, Housekeeping

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who didn’t call my parents when I skipped class last week.

Picaken Alert - Viewer discretion advised.

1.

Dorian Speed’s taken up the discussion of Catholic Arts and Letters over at her place.  I’m glad she did, because I was totally stewing over that OSV article.  Rather than be a combox hog, I put my comments into a post at CWG.

(Hint: Anyone who says “there’s too much catechesis out there” is just itching for a fight.)

2.

We’ve got a big fat Lenten FAIL going on here at the castle.  Vomitorium duty sure didn’t help, but let’s be honest, it was already falling apart before ever I was thrust down the black hole.    But if there’s one thing I’m good for, it’s perpetual hopefulness.  Is there any chance Good Housekeeping is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit?  I think a need a mega-novena.  Or probably just to get back on the wagon.

3.

Ah, but look, I do have a special intention for which the grace of Holy Spirit is needed.  If you would please, just go ahead and pray.  You’ll know your prayers were answered if you never, ever, have any idea what it was you prayed for.  That would be so great.  I would love it.

3.5

When I’m sick, I read.  It’s my vice.  So last week I pulled down one yet-untouched book in the rainy-day queue, read half a chapter, was disgusted by the unexpectedly crass language, and threw it away.  Then I picked up selection-in-waiting #2, and wow!  Who knew I’d love . . .

***

Okay that’s all for today.  I’m trying to catch back up on my Kolbe Reviews this week, get the other half the Doctors of the Church review re-written since the internet ate it on Thursday afternoon as part of my need for Jen-mortification, and I’m hoping to have something new up at Amazing Catechists, I know not when, but soon.  Ish.

Meanwhile, It’s Link Day.  Other people than Sandra are allowed to post links, though she’ll always be the leader, since she specializes in finding cool stuff.  One link per comment so you don’t get stuck in the spam dungeon.

Hey look — I wrote something last week. Just not here.

In case you didn’t see it pop up at about 70 places around the internet (okay just four that I know about), here’s my contribution to Chris Weigand’s Lenten devotional series.  In which I accidentally ponder yesterday’s Gospel for year A instead of for year B, despite checking three times to be sure.  Happy accident, though.  I think the woman at the well has been getting more bad press than she deserves.

 

7 Quick Takes: Doing it Wrong

Click to see more takes.

1.

My ashes have worn off.  Anyone know where I can get them touched up?  I made it till Sunday being moderately virtuous in the life of prayer and penitence, and then . . . well, some of us are more “childish” than “childlike” in our faith.  But God is merciful, and every day is new.  Back to it.

1B

I’m contractually obligated to tell you:  You are doing Lent wrong.

At least, I think that must be a line in the Catholic Bloggers Handbook, because that seemed to be the theme this past week.  Probably my punishment for too much internet and not enough diligence.

Take away lesson: If you are praying and fasting the wrong way, for the wrong reasons, and entirely too lightly, we the Catholic Bloggers of the World are here to let you know.  You see how convenient it is, giving spiritual direction to complete strangers?  So much simpler.   You can say thank you anytime.

2.

But if you are putting sand in your holy water fonts, that is just plain wrong.  It’s not my fault that I have to link to the grumpiest priest on the internet in order for you to find that out.  Tip for mothers of tween boys:  My son loves Fr. R.  What’s not to love, between the guns and the complaining about lousy hymns?  The girls got mad at me for reading one of his posts aloud — bad language (for our house).  I used the “just quoting a priest” defense.

Anyway, I figure it’s best to go ahead and get the boy hooked on crotchety right-wing gun-enthusiast priests, because then at least our arguments can be fun.

2B

The boy recommends you watch Matrix run on Windows XP.  I agree.

3.

Are we the only Catholic home where the wall and floor beneath the mini-holy water font are now very, very blessed?  I’m divided between whether that means we are very bad Catholics or just that much more desperate for God’s blessings.

4.

If you want to do one thing right today, quick stop reading and say a prayer for Allie Hathaway.

5.

Look, I’m a grown-up now! I told Lisa Mladinich that she’d have to re-name her site “Pretty Good Catechists”, or “Amazing Catechists Plus Also Jen Sometimes”.  She told me the no, she’s expanding the “amazing” brand to reach out the “It’s amazing anyone let you be a catechist” segment, and I was the perfect choice to lead that charge.*

Anyway, I posted one column at AC introducing myself, so if you aren’t sure who I am, quick go look.  I’ll stick up a regular catechist-y column sometime soon, and you can be sure I’ll let you know about that.  Double bonus if you go: You can see my picture instead of just a pile of rocks.  My writer friends are all patting me on the back.  Because now if you ever meet me somewhere, and I’m trying to stick my head through a very small window, sideways, you’ll be able to identify me right away.

6.

There’s a rumor that my first column at CatholicMom.com is going to appear tomorrow (Saturday) morning.  I’m interested to see what I have to say.  Something about homeschooling.**

7.

Blair of Blair’s Blessings pointed me (and many others) to the free audio stories for kids at EWTN’s site.  Do you see how happy and sweet her kids are?  She does things right.

***

*That is a COMPLETE FABRICATION. Lisa Mladinich is a friendly, cheerful person unlike your hostess here, and she would never ever say something like that.  I had to make it up.

**Lisa Hendey has you send in your first two columns before you start.  I don’t know which one she’ll put up first.  I love the suspense — now I have to get on the internet right away at 9:00am Saturday to find out.

3.5 Time Outs: Everybody Else

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who rocked my world this morning when I saw his post on Picaken.  I’m not certain if it’s more like a penance or a deadly sin, but, wow.  Just wow.

Click this picture to avoid Picaken and be transported safely to 3.5 Time Outs.

1.

Sarah R’s secret plot is a secret no longer.  She’s started a word-by-word series on the Hail Mary.  You can read about “Hail” here, and “Mary” here.  My word, like I said the other week, is “women”, so I have a little bit of time.  Sarah assures me that my getting selected for that word was purely dumb luck the grace of God.  Or just the way the list of bloggers happened to line up with the list of words.

2.

If you didn’t already sign up for the online Catholic Writer’s Conference, today tomorrow is your very last chance until next year.  [Updated because yes, I’ve been writing the wrong date all day long.  Registration goes until Feb 29th, and is closed come March 1st.]

Don’t cry when you read my post coming soon to CWG about pitch sessions, and say to  me, “But I didn’t know!”  Because you know what?  I told you.  Today.  This blog is not exactly a no-whining-zone, but I do limit the topics.

3.

The Fulwil-inator must be getting nervous, Larry, because she’s making a move for Wednesdays.  The Curt Jester has already aired his contribution.  My main writing location was shown here way back during the homeschool photofest, but maybe if I am goofing off feeling diligent, I’ll get an official entry for tomorrow.  Or not.  Just how industrious a minion am I?

3.5

 . . . wasps.

***

That’s my 3.5.  Last week’s open-link session did just what I’d hoped, and if you were smart you clicked on my friend Sandra’s links, because she’s the one who sends me 90% of the cool things that land in my inbox.

If you read here and have a link to your own work or someone else’s, consider this your invitation to just post it in the combox, rather than suffering that long horrid process where you e-mail me and then pray I don’t get sidetracked before I remember I wanted to tell the whole world about that cool thing you shared, but I forgot, and now you wonder if I hate you or hate your link, when actually, I just forgot.

[So far, no people that I hate have ever e-mailed me, so I promise you’re safe.  I’m having a hard time thinking of anyone I do hate, and that’s a sign of something good, I think, but let’s not get too precise about whether that’s referring to my spiritual condition or just my cave-dwelling lifestyle.  Maybe it’s that you who e-mail me are just that awesome.]

–> Post as many links as you like, but only one per comment, because the evil anti-spam automaton will gobble any post that has more than one link, and we don’t want that.

If you do get stuck in the spam dungeon, you have my permission to e-mail me and tell me what happened, and I’ll wade into the mire and fish out your comment and hit the approve button.  I’m going to quick drain the moat before I publish this so it won’t be quite so stinky down there.

7 Quick Takes: I’m not ready yet.

Click to see more takes.

1.

Lent Report:  The festival of cleaning combined with our new penitential life is starting to show results.  Neighbor kid who lives in a clean house all the time is unimpressed.  But I am.  For one thing, the finally collasping remains of the Leaf Fort have now been moved to a newly-constructed giant compost garden, where in theory we’ll grow fewer insects and more compost this year.

2.

On the other hand, less school work is being accomplished.  But we will catch back up.  We are still in the initial stages of our new, clean life, and there was some digging-out to do.

3.

I have at least one child interested in attending daily mass more often.  (By “more often” I mean “at all, ever”.)  I’m going to see how doing just Fridays works.

4.

But “just Fridays”, I mean to say, “Yesterday I did not race the kids to mass and adoration even though in theory we could have squeezed it in on the way to Grandma’s house, but seriously?  It wasn’t going to work. ”

As I told Father last week, sometimes trying to haul everyone to church is a near occasion of sin in itself.

I want my kids to associate weekday mass with peaceful, reflective times with God, not with Mom Yelling At You That Your Pants Need To Be Ironed Because You Did Not Put Them Away Properly And Quick Get That Food Off The Table Do You Not Remember We Are Cleaning Up After Ourselves Because We Are Growing In Holiness Quit Making That Face At Your Sister.

 

5.

But what I did do yesterday was something new: I read a book during adoration.    Dropped the kids at Grandma’s, returned library books, then stopped by the church as I sometimes (not always) do on a grandma day.

Normally I would pray for a very small amount of time, and then go over to McDonald’s, buy a cup of coffee, and read a book.  I always puzzled over people who read during Eucharistic adoration, because it felt sort of like if you had an audience with the Queen of England and you whipped out a magazine because you were so bored.  You know, because it’s so much more reverent to dash in,  say hello, and wave goodbye with a, “Nice seeing you, gotta run off to McDonald’s now”, right?

The book was Knox’s Retreat for Lay People.  And it would be a good helpful book if read at McDonald’s.  But read right there in the presence of Jesus? Wow. What a difference.  Talk about a serious book club.  Each point became something I could pray about — that is, talk face to face with Jesus right then and there.  Not contemplate while gazing at the ceiling, or the clouds, or even an icon or crucifix.  But right there with the Real guy.  Sheesh.   I’d never guessed.  Seriously cool.

 

6.

Pray for Allie Hathaway.  I can’t think of a better way to spend your Friday.

7.

“I’m Not Ready Yet” is what our first pair of preschoolers would call out from the bed in the evenings.  They’d lay there in their room, shouting out in a chorus, “I’m not ready yet!  I’m not ready yet!” in protest of their bedtime.  We have it on video.  It has now entered the family vocabulary as our all-purpose expression of dislike for less enjoyable responsibilities.

In other bits of castle dialect these days: Everything is coming back to Mr. Timn.

 

Catholic Blog Day: Penance

Welcome to the first Catholic Blog Day!  Read more here. The theme today is, fittingly, Penance.

Sunday afternoon the Superhusband and I sat around complaining about all the things that Catholics like to complain about.   “Too bad,” I finally said, far too late into our festival of grumpiness, “That we’re so lousy at prayer and fasting.”

Monday morning the readings came as no surprise:

Peacemakers, when they work for peace, sow the seeds which will bear fruit in holiness. (James chapter 3.)

When Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why were we unable to cast it out?”

“This is the kind,” he answered, “that can only be driven out by prayer and fasting.”  (Mark chapter 9.)

I’m convinced there is a particular demon, I call him the church-ocracy demon, who tries to stir up all kinds of trouble in the Church.  He’s the one behind those weird bureaucratic moments where kind, loving Christians find themselves at odds, because each is trying to do the Lord’s will, and do it diligently.   He’s the one who tries to change the famous verse to read, “Wherever two or more of you are gathered in my name, there will be a policy, paper, or program that drives at least one of you to distraction.”

Jesus promised the gates of Hell would not prevail against the Church; we should not be surprised, therefore, when our parishes become the front lines of the enemy’s advances.  In order to win a battle, there must have been a battle to win.

The Church Militant is not an army of automatons.  There is a time for simply shutting up and following orders, yes.  Today we fast and abstain in part merely because the Church has said we will.  This is the day, this is how you will proceed; the direction is clear, and we follow it.  It is no hollow exercise, for certain; but nor is this the day, for example, to say with either jealousy or scruples, “Gosh, meat isn’t any big deal for vegetarians, shouldn’t they be made to do something extra?”  Eat less, pray more, today is the day, here are the orders on who what when where and how.

But the virtue of obedience is not the virtue of idiocy.  The critics of the Church imagine we are all little robot-agents, wired by microchip to a master-controller sending orders from his lair in a Vatican basement.  We do crazy things, after all, like saving sex for marriage, and only marrying one person at a time.  Surely there must be some kind of drug in the holy water, right?

Inside the Church, we pervert the virtue a different way, bickering over minutia, or actively dissenting from the clear teaching of the Magisterium, but then using the cover of “obedience” to spare ourselves the long, lonely walk to Calvary that comes from refusing to follow illegal orders.

But the church-ocracy demon comes into his own in the vast middle between extremes, where we are neither complaining bitterly the tile is just the wrong shade of beige, nor being asked embezzle funds or cover for a child abuser.  There is a great wide territory where it is difficult to find the balance between engaged, thoughtful participation in the life of the Church on the one hand, and peaceful, joyful obedience on the other.  And what does obedience look like, anyhow?

Good Christians disagree.  Good Christians who love one another, who love Christ, and love the Church, disagree about what policies and procedures need be put in place.  Sometimes we disagree lightly — mere tastes or preferences are involved.  Other times, we each feel the other is making a grave and damaging mistake.

The demon is not in the disagreement.  The demon is not in holding our ground when we honestly feel we must, even though it mean we find ourselves at odds with our friends.  The demon is in the voice that whispers bitterness, fear, jealousy, and rage into a situation that is, simply, two or more Christians disagreeing on some matter.

And it is only driven out by prayer and fasting.

 

3.5 Time Outs: Mardi Gras

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who makes Tuesday everything it should be and then some.

Indulge yourself! Click the photo to see a veritable feast of internet treasures. Or a picture of foreign donuts.

1.

Catholic Blog Day.  What I had planned to do today (actually, yesterday, but let’s not quibble) was empty out my inbox of the 10,000 fabulous links kind people have sent my way lately.  You will have to wait.  Only the very most last-minute one makes it today:  The first Catholic Blog Day is tomorrow, Ash Wednesday.  The topic is penance.  Remember that you can use your scheduling super powers to post ahead of time, if you are planning to fast from blogging for some portion of the next 40ish days.

Hey, listen, how about we just make Tuesday a post-your-link-in-Jen’s-combox day?  Would that be so bad?  No.  You would love it.  One link per comment so you don’t fall through the automated trap door into the Spam Dungeon, where I never ever look anymore, because, ick, lots of spiders.

2.

The Festival of Cleaning  is not my favorite thing.  Let’s just say that Lent is going to hit very, very hard around the castle.  Should I do like I did a different year and also give up yelling at the kids?  I think yes.  I mean, every time I go to confession I resolve to give it up, so I guess Lent would be that time, right?

[Re-cap for the un-initiated: This year our family is going to Clean Up After Ourselves for Lent.  Reminder for the familiar-with-fitzes: Try not to laugh so loud.  You’re shaking the internet.]

3.

This book looks really cool.  Now I want to read it.

Also: Registration deadline for the [free!] Online Catholic Writers Conference is Feb. 29th.  That’s both for registering as a participant and/or as a presenter.  If you are newly-registering, it takes a couple days for the final approval to go through, so don’t panic at the wait.  You should sign up now, because you probably will not hate the whole entire thing, but the only way to be sure is to register and then go look when the time comes and see.  FYI it is for everyone of all skill and experience levels.

Oh and hey, in fixing 50% of the typos in take #3.5, I was reminded that Tollefsen fans should note the new article up at Public Discourse, “Mandates and Bad Law“.

3.5

It is not this shiny anymore.

The spiders reminds me of a true story, which if I’ve told you before you are going to hush and not spoil it for the people who want to read the second half next week:

When we first built the green castle, that summer Ev would not play in her little kitchen in the basement.  She kept telling us, “I’m afraid of the bad spiders,” and she wouldn’t go into it.  Eventually we got around to investigating. And then we were glad she’d held her ground on refusing to associate with the bad spiders, because it turned out they were . . .