Just Thinking

I didn't sleep well last night, so it may not be a good idea to write having so little rest, but here I go anyway.

What would life be like if we stopped concerning ourselves with what is practical, pragmatic or utilitarian, but rather concerned ourselves with what was true, good and beautiful? What would our lives look like? What would our relationships be like?

As I prepare the curriculum for my children this year, I find myself asking this question more and more. While homeschooling is wonderful, particularly in the choices and freedom it gives, there are limits - limits of time and resources. It is so easy to think too practically if the focus is on the limits, so I have to keep reminding myself to take the long view, and the ultimate goal, which is to help develop in my children a deep love and attraction for what is good and true and beautiful. In other words, a deep love for God, for after all, these are his attributes.

More thoughts later.

Robert Novak, R.I.P.

Today, reporter and columnist, Robert Novak died after suffering from brain cancer. I always enjoyed his newspaper columns and his television punditry. What I remember most vividly, though, is this story of his conversion to Christianity.

Novak started to go to Mass regularly, but it wasn't until a few years later that he decided to convert to Catholicism. The turning point, as he recounts in his book, happened when he went to Syracuse University in New York to give a lecture. Before he spoke, he was seated at a dinner table near a young woman who was wearing a necklace with a cross. Novak asked her if she was Catholic, and she posed the same question to him.

Novak replied that he had been going to Mass each Sunday for the last four years, but that he had not converted.

Her response – "Mr. Novak, life is short, but eternity is forever" – motivated him to start the process of becoming a Catholic through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. He was baptized at St. Patrick's Church in 1998. His wife was also baptized a Catholic.

Novak said he believed the Holy Spirit led him to Catholicism. He told an audience at the Heritage Foundation in Washington Aug. 2 that when he was interviewed by The New York Times about his book the interviewer scoffed at his story about his source turned priest.

But Novak said he told her he believed the Holy Spirit was behind the coincidences.

Of course, there are no coincidences.
Read more about his life here.

Lunch, Anyone?

Here is fun food art over at Funky Lunch.

The pig reminds me of a poor man's Boar's Head, appropriately made with ham, but I think I'd rather eat Nessie.

H/T The Scriptorium Daily