In response to “What Else Do Pro-Lifers Do?”, reader writes:

I’ve been told that mothers with young children do their charity in the home; that it’s more important to nurture those under your care than divide your time and energy by doing/going to other charitable things. While I agree with this to a certain extent, it seems a bit like…well, bs. An opt-out of those of us with kids under the age of 3 or 4 or whatever.

Reading your article made me realize I don’t do much—that I talk a big talk, but maybe I am one of those pro-lifers the pro-aborts says doesn’t do anything.  Could you give some direction to a young mother with only 2 under 3 right now? I don’t want to fall into the delaying...READ MORE

Pro-lifers only care about fetuses before they’re born.  If they were really pro-life, they’d work to care for the mom and her children after the delivery, too!

If you’re pro-life, you’ve heard this comment a thousand times.  I heard it again last night on Facebook:  a pro-choice fellow scoffed, “‘Pro-life’ is such a misnomer these days.  I’m more pro-life than most self-proclaimed pro-lifers.”

Genuinely curious, I asked him to be more specific.  He responded:

I tend to focus more on the lives of nonhumans, which are no less precious or important, and I make it a point to preserve life wherever and whenever I can. I’m vehemently and vocally opposed to war, genocide, the death penalty,...READ MORE

State Rep. Babette Joesephs says that female legislators who support pre-abortion ultrasound laws must be “men with breasts,” and not actually women.  She said it twice during a rally organized to protest the bill:  “I don’t understand it … I don’t believe they’re really women. … I believe they’re men with breasts.”

Pro-life news outlets are rightly responding with disgust, calling her remarks misogynistic; and so they are.  The representative’s crass phrase, “men with breasts,” shows a level of contempt for women which is hard to countenance.  In her view, woman are made of two things: breasts, and the freedom to kill.

I don’t hear people getting all giddy about being able to crank up their Lenten music, the way they did with Christmas songs when it was Christmas time (or mid-October, whatever).  That’s a shame, though—Lent is a wonderful reason to really wallow in some gorgeous harmonies that just don’t sound right any other time of year.  And no, the terminally lame and casually heretical “Ashes” theme song (I can’t bring myself to call it a hymn) doesn’t count. 

I do wish I knew more old Lenten hymns.  There is, for instance, one called “The World Is Very Evil” which intrigues me, but somehow we never seem to sing that one at the 11:15 mass. 

Here is some of my favorite Lenten music:

O Sacred...READ MORE

Are you going to the Religious Freedom Rally tomorrow? 

I desperately wish our family could be there, especially because I think it’s very good for kids to get caught being Catholic in public.  But my husband has to work, and the rest of us are spending the day in parent-teacher conferences.  I’m sorry to miss it, and I hope you can make it. 

But I won’t have to be there to know how it’ll go down.

You’ve heard the saying, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”  I was surprised to discover that this quote is attributed to Woody Allen.  I imagine Mr. Allen telling God his plans, and God not having not so much a good chuckle as a massive coronary.  Even if our personal lives aren’t the screaming debacle that Woody Allen’s turned out to be, we can probably relate:  if a loving marriage requires flexibility, then a loving relationship with God demands it on a Cirque du Soleil level.  Seriously, you are going to want to do some stretches first, before turning some aspect of your life over to God.

It’s time to come clean:  I have no idea who you are.

Yes, you, the one I’ve been corresponding with for several months.  You, the one I see four times a day, five days a week.  You, who know all the names, ages, talents, foibles, shoe sizes, birth weights and breakfast cereal preferences of each of my children.  Perhaps you think I recognize you because my face lights up when I see you, and I appear delighted to be spending time in conversation with you, one of my favorite people.

Well, that’s not delight.  That’s sheer panic.  On the inside, I’m thinking, “Oh, lord, give me a clue here.  Short woman, dark hair, dark eyes.  Something to do with kids.  Either my pediatrician, or the...READ MORE

Here’s a photo of a young man struck by lightning. 

His arm has been exquisitely branded with a Lichtenberg figure, the visible pattern left by an electrical discharge.

I’ve seen photos of Lichtenberg figures in the sand (fulgurites), formed when lighting strikes the ground and actually fuses the sand into tubes of glass in a characteristic branching fractal.  There is even a theory that mountain ranges themselves were formed by some immense, cataclysmic electrical discharge.  Here is a view from space of the Alps:

The other day, as it started to get warm, I saw the thick ice of the turtle pond start to give way, and the water below began to move and breathe again. 

I saw that...READ MORE