Why practicing Catholics should vote for Barack Obama, not for John McCain

I am a practicing Roman Catholic, and will vote for Barack Obama for President of the United States. Not only will I vote for Senator Obama, I will do so gladly and with a clear conscience.  The reasons are many.  This lengthy post enumerate many of those reasons, providing ample links in support.

I accept the Roman Catholic teachings on the sanctity of human life and, to the degree the views of Senator Obama and the Democratic Party platform depart from Catholic teaching on the sanctity of human life, I disagree with Senator Obama and the Democratic Party on their positions. I will work inside the party to change the positions of Senator Obama and the Democratic Party, and I will pray for change. I see my vote for Senator Obama as informed by my conscience to support a candidate not totally acceptable to Catholics but, who nonetheless poses a far lesser evil to the dignity and sanctity of life than a vote for Senator John McCain.

In my own life, I strive always to have compassion for those who disagree with me and seek to make a world where all children are recognized for the contribution they are to their families and the world, even before they are born. I will yet find a world where choice will mean whether one raises their child with the support necessary to allow the entire family to succeed, or a child will be placed for adoption by a family capable of the …

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Some lessons I’ve learned to get me through life

I’m constantly learning valuable new lessons, but I generally find it difficult to recall any particular good lessons at any particular moment. I got the same problem with jokes. I’ve heard a lot of good jokes in my life, but if I’m put on the spot, I’m at a loss to remember more than one or two.

I thought it might be a good time to dig deep to try extra hard to remember a few of those lessons that have taken deep root with me. One shortcut would be to cite some of the books I have read which have provided some good lessons. For me, one of those books has been Inner Peace for Busy People, by psychologist Joan Borysenko (2001). She divided her book into 52 chapters, each of them offering a strategy for holding things together and finding peace in one’s life.

In chapter 1 Borysenko recommends that we pay attention to the Yerkes-Dodson law, which holds that increased stress makes us more productive only to a point, while further increases decrease productivity. Borysenko argues that many highly productive people operate “on the descending limb of the stress/productivity curve.” In short, they could be more productive if they could only push themselves a bit less, which would reduce the toll they are putting on their overstressed bodies.

In chapter 2 (of her 52 chapter book), Borysenko draws on the Buddhist saying that “Peace is like a sun that’s always shining in your heart. It’s just …

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I know that I am wealthy when I consider my lack of misfortune.

I am a wealthy person, but not in the way most people understand “wealthy.”  I don’t drive an expensive car (I drive a 9-year old Saturn).   I don’t own a vacation house.  I don’t expect to retire for many years. 

I am wealthy because I am a survivor.  I have repeatedly escaped adversity and I’ve repeatedly stumbled into enough lucky situations.   These unplanned events add up to an undeniable and compelling form of wealth.

When most people consider how “fortunate” they are, they engage in some form of “accounting.”  For starters, they add up their savings and they subtract amounts they owe to others.   That gives them a financial base line.  There’s more to figuring wealth, of course.  

Some people consider their health when they assess their wealth.  If their bodies are in tolerable working order, that’s something well worth noting, especially for those over thirty.   Among people discussing age, I often assert that after thirty, “age” is mostly about health rather than chronological age.  Young adults snicker at this (I used to).  But imagine a room full of forty-year olds.  Everyone in the room is about forty, but just look how different they are!  Some of them look and act like they’re 25 and others are functional 75 year olds, often due to obesity, history of injury or illness, lack of exercise, poor nutrition, lack of sleep or various detrimental addictions.  The bottom line is that if you’re body is working even tolerably, that’s a big plus when figuring …

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What is life? What is the meaning of life?

Here are some of my favorite quotes on this ultimate topic of the meaning of life.  I pulled many of these quotes from my favorite quote site:  The Quotations Page, where you can find hundreds more quotes on the meaning of life” and thousands of quotes on numerous other topics.

Is there life before death?
Graffito, in Belfast

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950)

Life is a long lesson in humility.
James M. Barrie (1860 – 1937)

Life is a sexually transmitted disease.
R. D. Laing

Life is something that happens when you can’t get to sleep.
Fran Lebowitz (1950 – )
– More quotations on: [Life] [Sleep]

Life is just one damned thing after another.
Elbert Hubbard (1856 – 1915)

It’s not true that life is one damn thing after another; it is one damn thing over and over.
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 – 1950)

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950)

If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.
Tallulah Bankhead (1903 – 1968)

Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.
Brendan Gill

The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
Walter Bagehot (1826 – 1877)

A life

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Exercise great caution when peeling back the skin of life.

As human animals, we are condemned to live with great ignorance in an unpredictably violent world.  To compensate, most of us work hard to develop an extraordinary expertise to protect ourselves from considering our precarious existence.  We work hard to pre-screen toxic thoughts.  We rarely contemplate our own inevitable deaths, for example.  We are often successful at protecting ourselves from real-life things that would terrify us if we dared to squarely consider them.

Once in a while, though, we get a terrifying glimpse of unvarnished reality.  For instance, we sometimes suddenly realize that we are affixed to that Conveyor Belt of Life, a “belt” that inexorably moves us toward a time when we will be old if we’re lucky, then lifeless.  Whenever this terrible thought brings shivers, we quickly change channels to consider something less macabre.  Yet we are all strapped onto that Conveyor Belt, even our precious young children.  In 150 years, everyone currently living on Earth will be dead.  It is difficult to conjure up more disturbing thoughts.

What other toxic thoughts occur when our mental guard is down?  How about the thought that we are not meaningfully different from each other.  Or that the world is full of mobile intestinal tracts–walking talking intestinal tracts.  Or that our bodies are rife with parasites. And that we are animals. Or that we are breathing, thinking meat, a point directly yet elegantly made by a touring entourage of corpses known as BodyWorlds.  And here’s another toxic truth most of …

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