Well, the blog spammers are back.  I’ve gotten 40 comment spams overnight.  Of course, all they’re interested in is getting their google ranking raised by having lots of links and http references to their sites.  So, the easiest way to slow them down is to moderate any comments with a link or the word ‘http’ in it.

So if you comment on a post and it gets moderated, don’t take offense, I’ll make sure it gets posted the next time I get to my inbox.

I may look into the whole “verification field” deal so that I don’t have to moderate in the near future.  If I do that, you’ll have to type a different and funky piece of text in with each comment to ensure you’re actually a real poster as opposed to an automated blog-spammer bot.

The joys of the Internet…

I just saw an ad that used this technique so I thought it was appropriate to rant about it:

One of my biggest pet peeves is the use of “matching donations” in fundraising drives.  You know the whole “We have a generous donor who will donate $1000 if we can raise $1000 from our viewers in the next hour!”  Or the standard “we have a donor who will match your pledge dollar for dollar up to $5000″.  I hear it all the time on Catholic radio and it drives me bonkers.

Listen, either an organization is worth donating to or it isn’t.  Whether it is worth donating to has NOTHING to do with whether others are donating.  Is this rich dude really holding his donation hostage until others donate?  And why should those of us with less money feel obligated to come up with cash to make the rich dude feel better about his donation?  As my Dad would say: Shit or get off the pot.

Yeah, I know, it is used as a “technique” for getting more people to donate money and in the end more money is raised.  But you know what?  The ends do not always justify the means.  Emotionally extorting people is not the right way to raise money.  I’m all for the “your ‘free’ gift with your donation will be…” and numerous other techniques that are used, but the matching donation technique crosses the line from acceptable to emotional extortion.

The fundraisers always present this as an opportunity for us regular folks to “double the value of our dollar” but the way I see it, it is a way for the rich dude to double the value of HIS dollar by extorting the less fortunate.

How very generous of him.

Sorry I haven’t been writing much.  Been busy.  I’ll be trying to write more in the near future…

It continues to amaze me how many sound bites that are used routinely and considered to be compelling arguments are complete bunk.  Case in point, this statement by a Florida politician regarding Terri Schiavo:

“There are some decisions that ought to be left to God and family,” Crist said. “Had I have been governor, I would have not done the same thing” as Bush.

(That’s governor Jeb Bush for those forgetting)

OK, how many times have I heard “life decisions should be made by the family” touted in cases like this?  The problem frequently is that the family is not in agreement.  Specifically, Terri’s biological family (parents and siblings) ALL wanted to keep Terri alive while her husband wanted to see her life ended.  So it’s not just about “the family should decide”.  What do you do when they can’t decide amongst themselves?

Furthermore in this case, the case came down NOT to what the family wanted but what Terri wanted.  That was what was in dispute.  So really, the family’s interests were technically irrelevant.  If Terri’s husband had said in court “Terri told me that she would want to stay on life-support if she were in this state but I think it’s time for her to die anyway” (not saying that it is what was indeed the case, I’m just speaking theoretically) then the case would have turned out completely differently.  What was in dispute was that the husband thought she would want to die and her parents thought the opposite and there was nothing but hearsay for either side to present in court.

Finally (and back to the original sound bite), what does “left to God” mean?  Is he arguing that we should never do any medical treatment and let God either heal or not heal everyone?  The question is not whether we have faith in God, it’s whether we choose to follow God by doing His will.  We have to decide whether it is God’s will that a feeding tube be left in or removed.  We can’t just “leave it to God” and turn our backs.  That just doesn’t make any sense.

Obviously everyone who knows me, knows my opinion on the case and I’m sure that opinion colors this post.  However, I tried to be careful in this post NOT to make a specific judgement as to which side was right.  My point is not who is right, but just that the arguments used are completely irrelevant to the case.

Why do we as a public put up with this kind of crud?

Well, Lent is over.  For those who didn’t know or have forgotten, I was on an Lent-long fast (meaning one meal a day).

Fasting is a very difficult thing for me.  You only have to take one look at me and you know that I’m a man who loves his food.  It’s also difficult over sustained periods for me not so much because of the volume of food but because of the daily inconsistency.  I spent 20+ hours each day starving, a 1/2 hour eating 1000+ calories, and an hour or two satisfied.  Without a polite way to say it explicitely, let’s just say that’s a recipe to catch up on my magazine reading.

So here are the final stats of the fast:

• Total days: 46
• Total meals: 47
• Number of days with no meals: 2 (Ash Wednesday and Good Friday)
• Number of days with 1 meal: 41
• Number of days with 2 meals: 3 (sailing days where I added a small breakfast for strength for the day)
• Longest streak withouth food: 52 hours (Holy Thurday lunch to Holy Saturday dinner)
• Days without meat: 7 (Fridays of Lent and Ash Wednesday, per Church Lenten obligations and no more)
• Starting weight 270.0 pounds (Ash Wednesday morning)
• Low weight: 247.5 (Holy Saturday before breaking my Triduum Fast)
• Final weight: 251 (Easter morning before Mass)

Some have asked me why I did this or why I’ve done it in the past.  What do I gain?

The answer is difficult to put to words, but I’ll try.  First of all, I’d say that the aspect of my human nature that I least have control of is Gluttony (note definition #2 because this is the full sense of the word and what I am referring to).  I love to over-indulge and don’t have much will-power to stop myself.

One of the best ways to grow closer to God is to force yourself to rely on Him.  One of the best ways to do that is to put yourself in situations where you have no choice but to rely on Him.  For me, since Gluttony is so tempting, forcing myself to fast forces me to rely on God.  I’m completely incapable of fasting on my own.  It’s only by growing closer to God and putting my fate in His hands that I have an outside shot of fasting for sustained periods.  I spent a lot of time praying for strength and God always delivered… in God’s time.  And the “in God’s time” bit is important.  It’s not like I’d pray and the next instant I wasn’t hungry.  No, the hunger would pass when God thought it was time.  So the prayers were often sustained and repetitive.  It not only forced me into deep long prayers, it taught me to have patience.

Finally, I’m a sinful man, just like any man.  I feel the need for a great deal of penance for those sins.  As such, I’m constantly looking for good forms of penance.  Of all the forms of penance, fasting is the best for me because of how it draws me close to God.  I not only have the spiritual benefits of penance in its own right, but also the spiritual benefits that fasting gives me in its own right.  And for me particularly, fasting has many benefits.

I hope that explains it well.

In the end, this Lent was a successful one because I feel closer to God again.  Of the other things I had hoped to do or did as part of Lent, none of them helped as much as the fasting did.  It truly brought me into the Lord’s presence and that is always the most important goal of any spiritual practice.

I’m a pretty big sports fan.  I have football season tickets for the Cal Bears.  I try to make it to more than a handful of Oakland A’s games a year.  I sail much more than I can afford and which I could make myself even broke-er.

One of the things I love about sports the the purity of it.  At one end, the rules are simple and the winner is clear.  But at the other, we get to see our human nature played out in a very visual form.  Today I got another example of that while doing my morning blog reading at The Seventh Inning Stretch.  Here’s the quote:

“Today was no different, it was raining hard before one of the Easter masses I had to sing in. I joked and said that the rain was God’s punishment for those in line for Huston Street bobbleheads. Instead of celebrating Christ’s ressurection they were committing the sin of idolatry by waiting in line for a bobblehead. Of course, if I wasn’t obligated to be at church I’d be in line with all of those idolators commiting idolatry.”

And that’s our human nature in a nutshell.  We strive to be good and with the right re-enforcement, we are.  But that nagging desire calling us to sin is a powerful one, one that we have to admit we are powerless to overcome by ourselves.  But God has not abandoned us and is always available to strengthen us.  He gives us the strength to overcome our sinful desires.  All we must do is ask.

Well, Easter is upon us!  I hope that everyone had a repentant Lent and was able to joyously celebrate the start of Easter yesterday with friends and family.  I also pray that we’ll all be able to celebrate the entire Easter season, the 40 days in which Christ was on earth in His risen form.

May God’s blessings be upon all of us!

Well considering how much political commentary there is on immigration reform I thought I’d add my two cents.

First of all it is my belief that no matter what we do, the #1 important thing that must happen as a result of this is enforcement of the new laws.  Unless laws are complied with, laws are meaningless.  Laws are only complied with when the combination of the risk of getting caught and the penalty for being caught encourages most people to comply with the law.  In the case of immigration, with so many of those seeking to live in the US having very little to lose, there isn’t a strong enough penalty you can give that would deter illegal immigration on it’s own (or said differently with a low risk of being caught).  As a result, the only way to ensure compliance with the law to make the likelihood of being caught very high.

So whatever we do, enforcement of the new law MUST be our top priority.  If it isn’t, whatever our plan is will be meaningless.

Beyond that, my feelings are driven by two factors: respecting the lives of those who want to immigrate legally and relative stability of the US economy.

First, let me state what I think the biggest overlooked aspect of this debate is: employers abusing illegal immigrants.  When the debate is talked about, most speak as if the companies employing illegal immigrants and the immigrants who are illegally employed are perfectly happy with one another and would be content to just see the government leave them alone.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The reality is that although the alternative back home may be worse, most illegal immigrants face a world where they are routinely abused by not being paid for their work (in addition to the low wages to begin with), working in unsafe conditions, and rampant racism.

Why does this occur?  Because the illegal immigrants have no recourse.  They can’t go to law enforcement because they’re illegal.  And that’s the crux of the matter.  Many argue that by letting illegal immigrants into the country we are being humane to them.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  By letting them in illegally we are creating an environment where we are allowing them to be abused and we can turn our back in ignorance.  That is morally unacceptable to me.  We must ensure that our borders are enforced not only for “America’s” sake but to ensure the fair treatment of all who live in this country.

Next, I’ll attack another overlooked aspect: subverting minimum wage.  When politicians talk about a “guest worker program” what they’re talking about is a way for US employers to pay below minimum wage to immigrants.  Why should they be able to do that?  What makes these individuals less deserving of minimum wage than the rest of us?  I think that the “guest worker programs” as currently proposed are barbaric and de-humanizing.

I’m perfectly fine with allowing vast numbers of immigrants into our country.  However, that does not give us the right to treat them in sub-human fashion.  If they’re allowed to live here then they deserve the rights that everyone who lives here has.

Finally, what should we do with the illegal immigrants who currently live in the US?  This is the most difficult problem to address particularly considering that the US’s lack of enforcement in the past has been a de facto endorsement of their arrival.  Additionally, I heavily believe in the principle of forgiveness.

So where does that leave us?  It leaves us where the right solution is to do the following:

1. Dramatically step up enforcement on the border
2. Create a temporary residency program that has a path to permanent residency and citizenship for all immigrants and gives those immigrants the full set of rights of current legal immigrants, including minimum wage.
3. Allow those who are already living in the country to join the above program with some credit based on the length of their stay although never so much that they immediately become permanent residents.  Despite the fact that they deserve forgiveness, there must be some requirement that they go through a immigration process.  Residents who have arrived in the last year(?) would have to apply similar to non-residents and would not get any time based credit.
4. Set target number for these programs that are realistic and are “front loaded” to accept the reality that millions are already living here and will be joining the program “mid-stream”

Now, is that so hard?

The final session!  Most of my readers know that my main ministry in the Church is helping people who are interested in converting to Catholicism go through the process of conversion.  The formal process of joining the Church is called RCIA.  Those who go through the process are called Catechumens and Candidates based on whether the are already baptized or not.

One of the most disheartening things about being involved in RCIA is watching people disappear from the pews in the months following their initiation.  Fully half of new initiates are no longer attending Church a year after being initiated.  This session was all about where these new initiates are going and what we can do to help them stay in the Church after initiation.

I have lots of specific implementation ideas for RCIA as a result of this session, but I’ll save that commentary for the RCIA team’s meetings.  What I want to focus on is two things.

First, we need to be cautious in evaluating the faith of other people.  We tend to measure success based on whether the new initiates are in the pew every week.  While this is a reasonable starting metric, it is not the true underlying goal: conversion of heart.  I know of many Catholics, both cradle and convert, who attend Mass every week but have not experienced a conversion of heart.  The message of Christ is not strong in their heart.  On the other hand, I know many a person who has embraced the message of Christ but for one reason or another doesn’t attend church regularly (often out of ignorance of the value of doing so).  So we must be careful to remember the REAL goal of helping people through conversion and remember that metrics are only indicators, not the goal itself.

Second, I wanted to tell a story he told to illustrate the right way to lead someone through conversion: by example.

He shared a story from when he was in the third grade at Catholic School.  Sr. Della Williams, the teacher, told the class one morning to put on their coats and boots and go outside into the stormy weather.  When they got outside there was a bus waiting there and Sr. instructed them all to get on the bus.  She gave each of them a tag with a number.  When the bus arrived at its destination she told the class that they were at a nursing home and that the number she had given each of them was a room number.  She instructed them to go into their assigned room and talk with the people in the room.  If they were asleep they were to say some prayers.

Of course each of the students was nervous and he recalled thinking the person in the room he was assigned looked dead.  But after a few minutes of adjustment, he had a nice conversation with the woman.  After about a half hour, Sr. Della called everyone back to the bus and they went back to school.  Once everyone had settled down in their chairs Sr. Della opened the Bible and read the following passage:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.'” (Matt. 25:31-40)

Then Sr. Della said to the class: “This is what Catholics do” and then went on to the first lesson of the day.

I’m glad I was able to end this series of posts with this story because everything I’ve shared is meaningless if it is not put to action.  We must cloth the naked, feed the hungry and share the Good News of Christ with the world.  I pray that I was able to share just a small slice of the insights into Christ’s kingdom I had while at this conference in these posts.

This was a session I had been looking forward to from the moment I filled out my registration form.  For those who the name doesn’t ring a bell, Sr. Prejean (pronounced pra-jawn) is the nun who wrote the book Dead Man Walking and oversaw the making of the film with the same title.  She’s written a more recent book about the number of executed prisoners who are innocent called “The Death of Innocents”.

Sr. Prejean mostly walked through her journey as a nun finding herself involuntarily called to serve those who are have been sentenced to death.  It was heartening to see God working in her life as I have seen God leading me in directions I did not want to go.  We all are being walked on a Journey by God.

There was so much she said that is worthy of commenting on but I’m going to keep it to one point: the victim’s families.

One of the things I hate most about the death penalty activists in our country is how much time they spend lying about how good of a person the soon-to-be-executed prisoner is.  They bring up all kinds of stuff trying to improve the perception of the criminal.  This bugs me to my core because it has nothing to do with the REAL reason to oppose the death penalty: the sanctity of life.  It also bugs me because frequently they are lying about people who have done truly horrible things.  The activist do this because it is expedient.  It’s going to be pretty hard to prevent the execution of a particular person by stating “the death penalty is wrong” because it is not relevant to the specific case at hand. (See the end of my previous post in which I comment on expediency).  But Sr. Prejean would have none of this.  She was very clear that she thought the majority of crimes which we execute for are barbaric and grievous.  She showed great sympathy for the victim’s families.

She went on to say, that the victim’s families are being sold a false bill of goods by society.  We tell the families that only the execution of the perpetrators of the crime will bring them peace.  That killing the criminal will “make it right”.  Sr. Prejean points out that nothing in this world will ever make right the loss of a loved one.  That person’s death will not be un-done by executing the killer.

The result of this false bill of goods is that we are instead trapping these families in decades of hatred and grief.  The can not forgive, and this is the only path to peace, because they are told that only through the death of the killer will justice be done.

So I resolved to pray more often for the families who are faced with a capital case from the death of a loved one.  That they can find the only true path to peace: Jesus Christ.  That they can see that justice comes from God and that God is the path to forgiveness and peace.  May God’s will be done.