Author Archives: David

Sunday Morning

10 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by in Catholic Life, Family, Sport

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Mr. Good Catholic here managed to sleep through any chance of getting to 11:00 Mass. There is always the 4:30 Extraordinary Form (Latin ) Mass.  

I woke up fully embracing the gift of being alive. I should eat something, I suppose. The sun is shining, the temperature is pleasant. 

This is the first Sunday of the NFL season. Pro football is one of my guilty pleasures. I admit it.  Other guilty pleasures of mine include fried salt herring,  Looney Tunes from the 30’s and 40’s,  and Krispy Kreme Donuts.

As near as I know, our Florida friends and family are safe.  Several of them are in law enforcement, so I suspect they will be needed. My brother-in-law’s mother lives in Bradenton. She is around 90 and her daughter took her to her home in Georgia. We just hope she has a home to return to.  Praying for the folks in Florida.

4:18 AM And Awake

09 Saturday Sep 2017

Posted by in Literature, loneliness, Love and stuff

≈ Leave a comment

I have been up since 3:30 or thereabouts. I went upstairs last night to be with Mrs CorC?. She was watching The Andy Griffith Show episodes, then shows on lottery winners shopping for new houses on HGTV. OK. That was nice, I suppose, but the house-hunting millionaires inspired such chagrin in me I can’t begin to describe it. I have a house, I have a pretty good life. What do I care about the desires of lottery winners?.

Usually at this hour, I take time to pray the Rosary.  Now I am watching a movie in Greek about the poet C. P. Cavafy on YouTube. Since I don’t understand Greek, I must follow the story through the images and visual narrative. This is always a rewarding activity in that it gets one out of a customary way of seeing the world.

I feel sleep wanting to return. I’m debating whether to return to the “big bed” where my wife is sleeping or to sleep alone

Who can describe the pain of loneliness and the burdened heart? Blessed Mother you know me so well. Let me aspire to dream at your feet, enveloped in your pristine love.

The Thrill Is Gone

08 Friday Sep 2017

Posted by in Love and stuff, Relationships, Sexuality

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

I hope I don’t have some sort of sexual dysfunction.  I remain attracted to women and my physical responses are still present. There is something going on however. I no longer delight in tales and anecdotes of sexual escapades.  

I have looked at my sex life and my interest in sexual matters.  Revulsion is now the operative word.  Not guilt over what I have done.  Truth is, what I’ve wanted is love. Human sexual activity may or may not be about love. And in 2017 America it ain’t!

I see nothing loving in adultery, even when you slap the word polyamory on it. I see nothing loving in promiscuity, even when that is rationalized away. I am repulsed at fetishising sexual chastity, when  chastity is debased to a super-thrill. Brutality is still brutality, even when it is “safe, sane, and consensual”. 

Human sexuality is the playground of the selfish and self-serving and has been for a long time. The rules of the Judeo-Christian marriage, chiefly monogamous, lifelong unions between a man and woman make more sense than the values of the “hook-up” culture. Among those dubious values are divorce, cohabitation outside of marriage, and artificial contraception.

I’m sure many of you are shocked by these statements. Or annoyed.  I just want off the Sexual Fantasy Island. Because I see the misery out there living the Free Love Lie.

Miscellany. Wherein I Defend Confederate Monuments In Public Places.

31 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by in American History, Art, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Mrs CorC? was laid off last week in a cost-saving move by corporate. Sucks. We are using the down time to clear out junk in the old hacienda.  I took some books to the Y for their book sale. My dream is that we will be rid of enough stuff to commence work on the home remodel. The pricy stuff will be new windows, a rear patio door and hardwood flooring downstairs. With luck, we can have the house ready for the family at Christmas or Thanksgiving.

I’ve been on course to reach my weight loss goals. My swimming is coming along, well uh, swimmingly. I will do a 2-mile swim now without a second thought.

I live in Richmond, Virginia. We have in Richmond, an avenue where Confederate monuments are placed in positions of honor. They have been here for over a century. It is lovely statuary in an exquisite urban setting.  If political ideology clouds your aesthetic sense, you will be offended by monuments to Robert E. Lee and others.  Sorry. The street, Monument Avenue, is lovely .  Destroying beautiful things are what barbarians do. Art is also supposed to make one think and frequently makes us uncomfortable.  Think about that.

Yes, I know all about slavery. We Southern white males are not idiots. Nor are we ignorant. How is destroying Monument Avenue, even with its allusion to a tragic past, going to eliminate the horror of slavery from our history ?  Books in this country are already banned for superficial reasons. The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn is not taught in schools because Mark Twain used the “N” word.   The study of  history and literature isn’t for the timid.  Art isn’t about sentimentality. How can people we don’t much care for or agree with create beautiful things? Yet they do. And always have. 

This has been on my mind for a while. I needed to express my thoughts. 

Choosing

19 Saturday Aug 2017

Posted by in Catholic Life, Love and stuff

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Celibate or Chaste? I no longer consider my marriage that lacks a sexual dimension to be a “less than” or inferior bond. It is what it is. And the love between my wife and me is wholly satisfying. 

I believe our highly sexualized culture is a great deception. That happiness based on sexual fulfillment is an unattainable state and rests at the heart of this deception.  

So I’m choosing chastity until we have a sexually active aspect to this marriage.   As a Catholic marriage, we recognize God in all Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity as a partner in this bond.  Our marriage is our Vocation. I am saying good bye to the illusions of the erotic fantasy world.

Baseball. Why?

14 Monday Aug 2017

Posted by in Sport

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

I love this game, I hate this game. Sometimes, I just avoid watching a game, but I get sucked in. My wife reminds me, “It’s only a game.” I suppose. 

So the Yankees and Red Sox are going at it, Red Sox have the bases loaded in a tie game, top of the 10th inning, 1 out. The Yankee pitcher just gave up a single to score the runner on third, Red Sox 3-2.

It’s just not worth riding this emotional roller coaster. 

“It’s only a game.”

Day’s End.

12 Saturday Aug 2017

Posted by in Housework

≈ Leave a comment

What a day. No fireworks, no bells tolling joyous peals mark this day.  One doesn’t receive medals for tidying up, tossing out items that should have been pitched months ago. I feel like I deserve such accolades. I recycled my empty Altoids tins, my John McCann’s Steel-Cut Oatmeal canisters. As functional as they are, steel, with a snug-fitting lid, they continue to be made, and are not at risk of obsolescence.  Yet why have I saved three, with nothing to put in them?

I have little piles of charitable solicitation letters complete with cheesy greeting cards, calendars, return address labels. Maybe folks, I will send you some dough, when I get some extra money.  Your causes have merit.

I replaced an anemic basket, holding my Red Delicious apples, Bartlett pears, yellow Cavendish bananas, Roma tomatoes, and a Vidalia onion, with a larger one capable of holding all of the produce.

These nagging little chores have a psychological reward greater than the tasks. I’m just a little bit less attached to my stuff.

Saturday Night.

06 Sunday Aug 2017

Posted by in Catholic Life

≈ Leave a comment

Early this morning, 2 AM, I was up, cleaning the kitchen. I puttered around a bit, getting ready for Adoration of The Blessed Sacrament between, 4 and 5 AM. My time with Our Lord has become very special and important to me.  I have had the rather startling experience of Our Lord “speaking” to me, not some hallucination, but through  an insight I had not had beforehand.  

This morning I read Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange’s book The Three Conversions In The Spiritual Life, (Tan Books, Charlotte, 1977) while spending my time before The Sacrament.

 Father Garrigou-Lagrange raises the question “Is man able, without some help from on high, (his italics), to get beyond himself, and truly and efficaciously to love Truth and Goodness more than he loves himself?” (Page 7). A challenge, most certainly.   Somehow, at age 66, the Interior Life for me has become the Last Frontier.  I shall read on. But the emptiness of our secular and materialist culture becomes increasingly apparent to me. More stuff won’t make me any happier. And even that end called “Happiness” seems the most vain of aspirations.

The day grinds on. I do some serious catch-up sleeping, have breakfast with friends, then sleep some more, go swimming, have dinner and here I am. 

We have lost our pursuit of the Beautiful and the True.  We use Art to derive solely emotional responses, and ascribe to that emotional response, Truth.  Is Truth a mere feeling? 

“Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty. That is all you know on Earth and all you need to know.” Keats,  Ode To A Grecian Urn

I am tiring, making less and less sense, and feel frustrated pecking out the letters on my Smartphone. More later.