Peony Moss: October 2010 Archives

Juan Williams:

"...let me tell you what you can say on National Public Radio without losing your job.

Nina Totenberg wished that Senator Jesse Helms and his grandchildren would get AIDS -- I said would get AIDS. She's still working there.

A so-called humorist on NPR said the world would be a better place if 4 million Christians evaporated. Hilarious.

And calling millions of members of the Tea Party movement a sexual pejorative, tea baggers won't get you in hot water either.

So it seems some opinions are more equal than others at NPR."

because he has no respect for ritual."

Other literary genres have charms of their own, but the choices that horror novelists make are especially important because they often touch on questions of ritual. As any priest, liturgist, relief pitcher, band leader, wedding planner, barista, chef, musician, teacher, bonsai gardener, or tea ceremony devotee could tell you, it is human to take comfort in ritual. A local Starbucks said exactly that before ceding space on its door to an announcement about the return of the pumpkin latte....

...But anyone who dismisses ritual as fluff, shoehorns mere rhetoric into places where ritual should be, or sneers at the pomp and circumstance with which ritual sometimes travels, is chopping at more than the foundations of horror literature.

Structures and restrictions safeguard the sacred. Part of the role of culture is to protect values that we cherish but that, in our daily lives, we do not experience as urgent. We recognize, for example, that exercise and solitude are important for our physical and emotional well-being, yet seldom is our sense of urgency powerful enough to induce us to honor those needs consistently. Cultures in which exercise and meditative solitude are built-in practices protect their members from that lack of motivation. As our culture erodes, the structures and rituals that protect family life and the sacredness of the parent-child -- vitally important but not urgent in our consciousness -- are also gradually eroded.

...We need some rites of attachment to safeguard the sacred, something that serves us in the long term so we don't have to be conscious of it in the short term. -- p. 205, Hold On to Your Kids, Neufield and Mate

Another great article by Monsignor Pope of the Archdiocese of Washington:

Scripture does give some answers as to God’s delay and to his “No.” And while these explanations may not always emotionally satisfy us, they do provide a teaching which can ultimately assist us in not allowing our sorrow, anger or disappointment to interact with our pride and lead us away from faith....

When God Says No