Random Thoughts

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Motivation counts for a lot. Even the middle-aged and out-of-shape can move fast when someone in the same room with them looks out the window and says, "Tornado!"

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Think twice before telling God you probably need a big kick in the pants--if it's true, he knows already and saying it in prayer is just asking for trouble.

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Cliches get to be cliches for very good reasons. Having your family come through a dangerous experience unharmed really is the most important thing about the experience, and it really is the case that the best way to appreciate something is to realize you might have lost it. Truisms may be tired, but they're true.

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When you have an unpleasant job to do, it works better to imagine yourself as an Asian (or other) immigrant to the US who is just glad to be here or even to put on the mantle of Christian humility than it does to adopt an attitude of "lazy, entitled, modern American".

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We all arrive at adulthood with our own set of faults, but it seems to me there's few greater failures possible in life than to reach old age and death with all of those faults intact and unmitigated.

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We should all occasionally ask God to help us focus on the beam in our own eye rather than the speck  in our neighbor's.

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Anyone who doubts the Eucharist imparts actual grace should compare the ease of dealing with difficult people when they're receiving the Eucharist regularly relative to the times when they weren't.

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Some self-proclaimed Christians say "I've been praying for you" in a way that is suggestive not of actually praying for you, nor even of wanting merely to express polite concern for your well-being, but of contempt.

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At least one of my grandmothers was a teenaged mother and no one gave her an MTV show. Probably because she did the boring, socially responsible thing of getting married first.

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Everyone notices a nun in traditional habit. It's an eye-catching message that "here is something different", a wordless rebuke to worldliness. If they'd known what a great witness their distinctive garb is, surely no nun back in the '60s and '70s would ever have wanted to get rid of their habit.

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Speaking of the '70s, this is my favorite song about the '70s: Tom Servo's Haunting Tribute To the Seventies.

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Dennis Prager or someone once pointed out that marriage is the only "relationship" that creates new family.* Has anyone pointed out that this can be uncomfortable for your family? Just like with being born, we don't get to pick the people we become related to by marriage--not by the marriage of our relatives, anyway. Considering some of the people our blood relatives can, with a quick trip to a JP's office, make us related to, it's almost enough to make arranged marriages seem appealing.

* Well, I guess any male-female sexual relationship can create new family, but it does not necessarily do so.

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Sometimes, having your principles meet reality can feel like a car hitting a concrete wall--jolting, even if everything inside is still intact.

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The lyrics to Aretha Franklin's "A Natural Woman" could almost be the theme song for any female Christian convert.

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Re a recent Cul-de-Sac , why DO adults feel the urge to use constructions like "l'il" in kid stuff?

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It's surprising people continue to steal actual CDs and DVDs when it's so much easier and safer to steal the digital version of the same thing.

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The maxi-dresses I see everywhere this summer are better-looking than shorts and are a big improvement over a**-crack and stretch mark-revealing low-rise jeans, but why do 80 or 90% of them have to be accompanied by visible bra straps under their spaghetti straps or rising above their strapless bodice? What's the thought process here: "I'm going to buy a pretty dress and, as the crowning touch when I wear it, I'm going to have my underwear hanging out!"

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