Anakin does not regard the virtue which is of paramount importance: obedience. Regardless of his youth, or even his personal fault, this is where (in my humble opinion) he begins to fall. He struggles with the authority of Kenobi and believes himself to be smarter, quicker and more talented than any other.
“Are you more Phlegmatic or Sanguine?” “She’s probably not going to come. Those Scorpios!” How we like to package people neatly and tuck them, tied up with a perfect bow, in a little slot with their fellow creatures! Human beings are unpredictable, and any hint we can glean or formula that we can follow that sheds some light of foreknowledge on their actions is welcomed with open arms. To understand those around us is a heady power and one that we would not lightly lose.
As a woman, traditionally it is my role in partner dancing to follow my dance partner. Let me tell you that this has not always been easy for me, and still isn’t. it took me years of daddy-daughter dances to let go of the rhythm I heard – let’s call it my rhythm – and follow my dad’s.
As you may already know, Unplanned is the true story of Abby Johnson. She worked at Planned Parenthood for years, rising in prominence until she became the youngest clinic director in the company’s history. She was honored as their Employee of the Year. She had a husband and a daughter and what probably seemed to others as the perfect life. But, as the promotions say, what she saw changed everything.
“The Oasis Within” can be read solely as a story, and it would be both diverting and useful, but the thinking reader will also consider the many questions about the meanings in one’s life and the nature of the good, the true, and the beautiful.
A curious fact about Midsummer is that it does not fall in the middle of our calendar summer. However, Midsummer does fall in the middle of true summer, around the time of the solstice and of St. John’s Day. In the context of trees and grasses and flowers and agriculture, summer began months ago and is now at its peak, now declining with the sun towards Michaelmas and autumn.
“If a person lives a great life, gives love to his friends, family and random strangers. If he upholds his beliefs and lives by example, but he isn’t religious, does he get into Heaven?” …First, what do we mean when we talk about Heaven?
Welcome to the future, where humans have colonized the moon, Mars, and much more. Where people are categorized based on the planet they come from. Where living on a spaceship for more than a month at a time is normal. Where crew becomes family.
Saint John the Baptist, a man not shaken by the wind, a man not dressed in the finery of the palace, eater of locusts. Well, that last one doesn’t sound quite as impressive, but he did eat locusts as well as whatever he could find in the desert near the Jordan River. He lived the life God called him to live, and he lived it well, so he has a feast day in the Calendar of Saints….
Have you noticed that despite all speakers’ efforts, graduation speeches sound very much alike? “Keep the torch alive to pass to a new generation with the key that unlocks the road to the future…”
One of those Ancient Greek philosophers – Aristotle, maybe – said that there were three types of friendship. Whatever he called them, I’m going to call them the Fun Friend, the Useful Friend and the True Friend.
Each of us has a place inside, deep inside our inmost being, hidden away from prying eyes and mocking words. It is a place of snowflakes and bubbles, of hopes and fears. It is a place in which one wrong move means catastrophe…
The big V Vocation is our ultimate call to one of the three following categories; religious life, married life, or consecrated single life. In order for us to discover complete fulfillment in life, a desire with which each individual is born, we must open our hearts to God’s whisper.
Life, death, rebirth. These themes are revisited every year when the flowers bloom again, filling the world with color, like a rainbow had walked through the melting snows. The image of a stone rolled away from the mouth of a cave circulates the web in honor of the Resurrection of the God-Made-Man. And it’s not just in the memes that circle around the world, it’s also in the tales that are such an important part of our libraries, and our imaginations.
The Easter Bunny is hiding brightly-colored Easter Eggs for the children, a tradition brought to America from Dutch immigrants, though the now-famous bunny originally began as a fox. But what about other countries? Not everyone celebrates Easter the same way, because no two cultures are exactly the same. But that’s the fun of it.
Churchmen everywhere emptied out from their sermons such abhorrent things as doctrines and definitions, they got rid of “all that ritual nonsense” that the fast-moving modern couldn’t stomach – in short, they tried to bring back the common man by meeting him halfway. What they actually did was to confirm him in his skepticism by offering a second-rate relativism which neither satisfied his taste for fashion nor reignited in him an actual love for truth. Religion, it seemed, capitulated to the fads of the world.
“You go to Taco Bell, and if you don’t want a Coke, you want ‘just water.’ Just water? JUST water?! It’s the whole reason you’re alive, but it’s free, so you treat it like it’s nothing!”
My friend was on to something.
Today’s first lesson is that no such construct as “homeschool” exists, either as a noun or as a verb. When your father taught you hunting safety he did not homeschool you; he taught you. If your sixth-grade teacher taught you not to spit tobacco into the classroom litter basket because your parents failed in their duty of teaching basic hygiene, manners, and dignity, he did not schoolhome you.