New Spiritual Gift

From Scotteriology, via Chris Tilling:

A shocking new spiritual gift has been discovered at St Mellitus College and St Paul’s Theological Centre. This gift is the power of the spoken word to put members of a classroom or audience into a powerful and peaceful sleep. Apparently, the gift which is being termed hupnos was unknown before the arrival of their new NT tutor; then during the last semester many began noticing powerful movements of the spirit as they would “come to” after a lecture feeling like they had been in a state somewhere between narcolepsy and a coma.

Read the rest over at Scotteriology.

Chris Tilling is a brave man in more ways than one. Besides this link to a good laugh at his own expense, he courageously lists my humble blog on his theology blogroll. To give you an idea of how out of my depth I am at his blog, he and his fellow commenters joke around in Greek.

While you're there, you may want to have a look at his PopeTarts™ and Popesicles™ post.

The One Time I Cheated

The story of the students who were disciplined for setting up a Facebook discussion group on the subject of an apologetics course which they didn't like reminded me of the only time I cheated as a student.

While I was at Loyola University in New Orleans, the head of the history department or the president of the university, someone in authority, ordered that all final exams in the department include a section on the Reformation. In my American history class, we were handed a rather fat stack of mimeographed sheets on the Reformation (or Protestant Revolt, as it was often called) to study. We were outraged. Our professor did not like the idea at all, but I suppose he had no choice.

A few days before the exam, a key to the true-false test answers for the Reformation part of the exam found its way into the hands of the students, and we all took advantage of it. I answered a few questions wrong, so my paper would not look suspicious. When I finished my exam, most of which consisted of essay questions on American history, plus the mandatory true-false Reformation test, I asked the professor what percentage of the grade the Reformation test would count for. He said 1%.

The powers ordered the profs to include the Reformation test, but they rebelled by counting it as only a tiny percentage of the grade. Once I heard that, I was ashamed of cheating. The teacher was brilliant and fair, and I should have trusted him to make things right.

I'm not counting the time in the second grade, when I missed several days of school due to illness, and I had quite a few pages of math problems in my workbook to make up. I was falling asleep over the math, and my mother told me to go to bed, and I could finish in the morning. When I woke up, the problems were already done, by my mother writing with her left hand.

I hope that no one in authority at Loyola reads this post and renders my diploma null and void, but really, at this point, what would it matter?

Prayers, Please

From The Janet:

My precious cousin Lisa (my daughter is named for her) had a radical mastectomy last month, and is starting her third week of the first round of chemotherapy tomorrow.

She swears she is cancer-free now, says they didn't leave anything for cancer to be in, and the chemo is a just in case thing. I have to believe she is cancer-free because she just has to be okay, but it doesn't stop me from worrying. Now that she's down to 89 pounds (at 5'4") and each week hits her harder and she's so damned fragile. I hug her and there's nothing in my arms but a sweet smell and what feels like paper-thin bones.

I have a lot of cousins, probably more than my share, but my Lisa Kaye is so special, so close to my heart. If anyone has extra prayers (yes, I know we all have extras in abundance, but uh oh I don't know) where was I? asking please please pray for my Lisa Kaye. I don't know why it is so hard to ask.

From JCF:

I posted about my friend Cath on MadPriest's, asking for prayers (but the request got lost, apparently). A never-smoker, she was nonetheless diagnosed w/ in October w/ Stage 4 Lung Cancer. :-( (She learns tomorrow how her treatment is going. That's what her disease is called: "Treatable, Not Curable"---of course, I pray for a CURE anyway!)

Please, y'all, pray for her (she lives in my California hometown, and I will be seeing her when I fly home next week)

UPDATE from Doxy:

---and may I ask them for my friend Terri-Lynn, who is still fighting colon cancer? She's feeling better right now, but is still so very, very tired. She will celebrate her 50th birthday on Christmas Eve...

Student Sues RC Diocese Of Houma-Thibodaux

From the Daily Comet:

A former E.D. White Catholic High School senior embroiled in a dispute with school officials over a Facebook page has filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit, claiming the school unfairly suspended her because of her race.

Now attending Tulane University, Hannah Jegart, a black student, claims she received a longer suspension for violating school code than a dozen or more white classmates involved in the same incident.
...

The suit states that school administrators and diocesan officials “deliberately tailored” a nine-day suspension so that Jegart would lose scholarships and be forced to withdraw from the school.

Hannah was an honor student with a full scholarship to Tulane. With the nine day suspension, she would not only have lost her scholarship and her honors, but she would not have been able to graduate.

Other students received suspensions, but none as long as Hannah, and none would have been prevented from graduating.

Administrators suspended Jegart Jan. 15 for creating an online discussion group on the popular online social-networking Web site Facebook, the suit states.

The page allowed students to discuss their senior-level class in Apologetics, or defenses of the Catholic faith.
....

The discussion group, unnamed in the suit, was titled “Screw you apologetics and yo wonky ass sources,” Spinella said in an interview in January. It still exists and has 40 members.

The online group violated the student conduct rules forbidding them from taking part in activities on or off campus that harm the school’s image.

I laughed when I saw the title of the Facebook site. I suppose that means that I would not be a good school administrator, for I doubt that I would have disciplined the students at all. The punishment seems an overreaction and quite harsh to me.

Bishop Sam Jacobs ordered the two Roman Catholic High Schools in the diocese to require the class for all graduation seniors. The word around town is that most of the students did not like the class. Before the bishop required the class, the seniors studied comparative religion, a class which was popular with the students.

I don't mean to imply that high school students should be able to choose their classes, but apologetics is defending the faith. If I am to believe the commenters on the forum at the Comet discussing this matter (which ran to over 50 pages the last time I checked), many parents and students were annoyed by the bishop's imposition of the unpopular course upon the seniors and then outraged by the harsh punishments dealt to the students who participated in the Facebook discussion group. What good is a course in defending the faith for students who are so turned off by the whole affair that they no longer want to defend the faith?

Here's a link to my original post on the story.

Sad News From Washington

There will be no Nativity Scene in Washington DC this year! The Supreme Court has ruled that there cannot be a Nativity Scene in Americas's capital this Christmas season.

This isn't for any religious reason, they simply have not been able to find Three Wise Men in the Nation's capitol, nor could they find a virgin.

P.S. There was no problem, however, finding enough asses to fill the stable.

From Doug, who is overflowing with the spirit of the season.

Christmas Card Irony

The following hand-written Christmas message is from a friend from my high school days. We are still good friends, although we don't see each other very often.

I only send Christmas cards when it snows. If we're still here in another 18 or so years, I'll send you another.

Merry Christmas to you and Tom.

Her mother, who was like a second mother to me, lived to age 99.

As you see, birds of an ironic feather flocked together, even way back then.

Thanks Be To God And My Doctors!

On Friday, I received the report that my annual mammogram was clear. That's 23 years past breast cancer. Surely good reason to rejoice and give thanks.

With Kirstin, I say, "I don’t ever, ever, ever want to get cancer again. But I am not sorry that I had it. Cancer gave me more than it took."

That's the truth of it. I looked death in the face and came to know, as I never had before, that life is fragile. I learned that the people in my life are of great value, much more so than any of my possessions. I learned to live for today, not in the past, nor for a future that may never come. Most important of all, I grew in faith. I know that God is with me, no matter what.

UPDATE: Rmj at Adventus quotes the wise and wonderful words of Fra Giovanni, which elaborate beautifully on what I said above.

No more Wah! Wah! Wah!

Before Wednesday, I have to get a few decent posts up on this blog, because a young local reporter interviewed me for a human interest story on the blogging grandmother, which will be published in the newspaper in a neighboring town, and in Thibodaux the following day. I must scramble to become a prophet in my own country. She seemed truly amazed that I had a blog. Why is that?

But that won't be today, because Grandpère and I are going on a tour of homes in the Garden District in New Orleans. The tour benefits the Preservation Resource Center of NO. We will drop our grandson off for another grandson's birthday party at one of those noisy party places and then go tour the beautiful homes.

Tomorrow, or perhaps Monday I shall begin my project to write a series of excellent posts to knock 'em dead locally.

The Power And The Glory

Update on the latest in the power saga:

No one from Entergy showed up this morning, so Grandpère got on the phone to wherever the customer service call center is located, most certainly not around here, to ask when they were coming to finish. In response to the call, the same serviceman whom I chewed out finally showed up. It seems that Entergy thought we were proceeding immediately to trench and lay the pipe to pass the line through. They were going to leave the transformer (which does not power our whole house) and not repair the line.

We do not even have an estimate on the price of laying the pipe, nor any idea when the work might be done. The cost may run into the thousands. We want the line repaired, even if the repair will only last a few months, until we work out how and when to have the pipe laid. Good thing we cleared that up. It could be weeks or months before that job is done. The serviceman left, but he said they will return. We shall see.

Thanks to Tobias in the comments for the title to this post.

UPDATE: The line is repaired, and we are once again empowered.

Good For The Night, I Hope

We have power of sorts. If we conserve our use of power, we seem to do all right. Tomorrow (We hope!) the power company will try to find the bad spot in the line and do a temporary repair, and sometime soon, we will have to hire an electrician to trench, lay down a pipe, and the power company will run a whole new line through it.

Thank you all for your concern, and thank you for putting up with Mrs. Grinch today.