Rather than wallow in my failure, I will instead take pride in having enough restraint to not explode in a burst of obscenities.

Wordle 306 X/6

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Finally getting to see this: Jack White playing the National Anthem at a Detroit Tigers game. I think I actually like this more than Jimi Hendrix’s version.

The Sesame Street Word of the Day with “Ted Lasso’s” Brett Goldstein starts with “F.” And no, it’s not the one you’re thinking.

Logging this here for later viewing: Fr. Matthew Schneider, an autistic priest, has posted video of a Wheaton College presentation on autism in religious groups along with his review of it.

A passage from today’s Magnificat morning prayer stuck with me:

“… endowed with all delights and conforming to every taste.”

The RSV-CE wording: “… providing every pleasure and suited to every taste.” And the GNT translation says, “The food you gave delighted everyone, no matter what his taste.”

Hot take I’m pondering: Christ satisfies “every taste,” according to each different creation of his. Could it be that God honors the differences he created among his children, and connects with them where they are?

Phew.

Wordle 305 6/6

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I really hated this one. And based on what I saw from folks on Twitter and from C’s experience with it, this was tough all around.

Wordle 304 6/6

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Been seeing a lot of ads lately on MLB.tv about Jesus. The “He Gets Us” campaign is “designed to createcultural change in the way people think about Jesus and his relevance in our lives.”

Relevant asks what the deal is with the ads. Christianity Today says the anonymous funders of this nondenominational campaign are willing to shell out up to $100 million to make Jesus as big a brand as Mercedes Benz.

Random linkage: April 19, 2022

Wordle 303 5/6

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Snow. Outside our window. Or as one local meme refers to it, “third winter.” 😐

Wordle 302 5/6

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Why I still linger on the evil Meta entity known as Instagram: I can still discover holy posts like Patti Smith’s on Easter. I’ll never hear “Dancing Barefoot” the same way again.

Frannie was received into the Roman Catholic Church and confirmed last night during the Easter Vigil. As we couldn’t find her patron saint, St. Francis of Assisi, among the many parish icons, we settled for a holy selfie with Franciscan saint Padre Pio.

Wordle 301 3/6

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Color these done. Made with a weird Target “color swirl” dye kit.

It’s been a few years since I’ve been to an Easter vigil Mass, and my only experience has been at an Episcopal parish. This America piece reminds me of the sheer length of the liturgy at Roman churches like ours.

I’ll be fortifying myself with caffeine later this afternoon.

Finally able to watch live White Sox baseball after cutting the cable cord, except it’s on Apple TV+ without our great local broadcasters.

Appreciate hearing women handle play-by-play and some analysis, but the hi-res “Megalodon” shots are weirding me out.

Lent ended on Holy Thursday. And on Good Friday, we made our first attempt at hot cross buns. Not pretty, but we’ll settle for fluffy and tasty.

Wordle 300 4/6

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Powering through to Easter

It’s Holy Thursday. I feel like this Holy Week (indeed, this Lent) is winding down too soon in a cloud of apathy for me.

I’ve been off my feed the past couple of weeks; my prayer routine has been off, my sleep schedule has gone awry, and I’ve generally felt physically and emotionally blah. I’ve had moments where life in front of me felt cloudy and dark.

I blame unwise timing of coffee consumption for the sleep problems. The other stuff? I suspect mild depression and being under attack, spiritually speaking.

This started a few weeks ago, after a bit of a spiritual high with a powerful Lenten retreat at my parish. After that, I found myself distracted more than usual during Mass, irritated (more than normal) by the people around me, and increasingly opting to skip morning or evening prayers. I did have some moments of connection during a few adoration visits, but then I’d slip up again.

This description of a spiritual attack resonates with my recent experience:

When I was actively under attack, I experienced fear, doubt, sleep disturbances, extreme fatigue, and a debilitating lack of concentration. There was a lot of confusion and obsessive thoughts that interfered with my ability to think or communicate clearly. I also suffered from depression mostly, because I could no longer feel God and believed He had abandoned me. As a result, I isolated myself from others and began to look for Jesus. It was difficult to complete tasks, and I often wondered what was wrong with me. The sleep deprivation left me weak and susceptible to further and more heinous attacks. This is not everything that happened to me, but it should be enough to help you understand what an attack is like.

What to do? My first thought has been to try powering through – at least try to resume what little prayer routine I have (morning offering, Angelus, prayer of daily neglects) and keep going to Mass. I’ve also been praying the St. Michael prayer with Frannie every night, since CCD has been drilling that into her head for much of the year.

I can’t say I’m out of my funk entirely, but I’m convinced that I’d be a lot worse off if I hadn’t done any of these things. And I feel like there’s a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. That a glimmer of light is emerging as Easter nears just adds to my optimism.

Grateful to see some decent articles online about this kind of thing:

The non-spiritually inclined among us will scoff at all this. But I firmly believe this stuff is real. Sure, I’ve always had issues with irritability and depression and fatigue – though in the case of the latter, that has diminished significantly with my recent weight loss. But there’s a dark dimension to the past few weeks that’s weird to me.

But I’m going to trudge ahead because I need to. And I’m hanging onto that Easter hope.

Annoyed with myself for forgetting Wordle yesterday. Streak restarts at 1.

Wordle 299 3/6

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Random linkage: April 13, 2022

As always, in no particular order.

A high-profile transgender psychologist is concerned about the recent spike in adolescents coming out as trans:

The people on the right … and on the left don’t see themselves as extreme. But those of us who see all the nuance can see that this is a false binary: Let it all happen without a method or don’t let any pass. Both are wrong.

Trans activists feel betrayed. But Erica Anderson, who has helped hundreds of young patients transition, sees it differently.

As millions of teenagers across the U.S. went into quarantine in 2020, Anderson found herself meeting more and more parents who were startled when their children came out as trans. The UC San Francisco adolescent gender center where she worked saw a total of 373 new patients last year — up from 162 in 2019. …

“To flatly say there couldn’t be any social influence in formation of gender identity flies in the face of reality,” Anderson said. “Teenagers influence each other.” …

“What happens when the perfect storm — of social isolation, exponentially increased consumption of social media, the popularity of alternative identities — affects the actual development of individual kids?” Anderson said. “We’re sailing in uncharted seas.”

Welp, the Giants are making some brutal work of Yu Darvish and my Padres. Now 8-1 in the bottom of the 2nd. Will still stick it out tonight, in case a comeback happens.

At least the White Sox won earlier today.

Update: It’s now 13-2 in the bottom of the 8th. At this point, I’m just staying up to see if any wacky shenanigans ensue with Don and Mud.