Return of the Blogroll; or Shout-Out Time!

Some of you don't know what a blog roll is, and may think it is a tasty pastry to go with those lady finger sandwiches I wrote about in the last post.  Actually, it's new-fangled code words for "links to other blogs that are lined up on the side of your blog---just move the pointy arrow on your screen over, click on them, and you go there like magic."

So here's a run-down of friends of mine who have blogs.  If you have a blog, and are a friend of mine, lemme know and you can be up there to.  Traffic to your site will increase by leaps and bounds: both of my readers (Hi Mom and Dad!) will visit you on your website.

So, without further adieu:

Embracing the Passion

My friend good friend Lieutenaint J writes about life as an officer in the United States Marine Corps in Iraq.

An American in Paris Phoenix

My friend writes (formerly) about the travails of cooking in Paris, and now about beating the heat in the desert.  (It's a dry heat, they say.  So's the surface of the sun).

Mark&Ali

I did a quick stint in New Orleans, and the wonderful lady who helped organize our trip, Ali, is now working with her husband in ministry in Brazil.  His name is Mark, in case you were wondering :)

The Grande Adventure

My friend Chris, reaching out in the Eternal City.  Plus he links to music all the time.

Crash

My friend Chad, working with Young Life at Central Crossing

Among the Lampstands

Wes writes as only Wes can.

Well that is it for now, folks.  Bye everybody!

Blake's Story

OK, my friend Chris posted a remarkable story from a kid who just graduated from my high school (yay, Golden Bears! Three straight state championships in hoity-toity sports like lawn bowling, horseback polo, and competitive formal dining--how many lady finger sandwiches can you eat in 15 minutes and still down a cup of Earl Grey? Out school record is 32--hollandaise sauce included¹--by Morton Mortington III--I jest because I love).

Anyway, my friend Chris reported on it first, so just go over to his place. I have a comment at the bottom, or at least I will as soon as Chris accepts it, which he better, or else I'll throw a ladyfinger sandwich at him.

¹I've long maintained that hollandaise sauce is just Dutch mayonnaise.

The Death of a Good Man

Apropos of my last post, here is an obituary of Billy Raftery, a man I never knew, but a friend of Francis Beckwith, of What's Wrong with the World.

William Paul "Billy" Raftery, 57, of Las Vegas, a loving son, brother and uncle, passed away suddenly May 27, 2009. He was born May 22, 1952, in Norfolk, Va., and was a 45-year resident of Las Vegas. Billy was employed as a room service waiter at Bally's Las Vegas since 1973, and was on duty during the 1980 MGM Grand fire. Although he graduated from Valley High School in 1971, he was a true-blue Bishop Gorman Gael. Billy was honored for his loyal support to the

If hope fails, is nothing left but to make the final cut?

Bishop Gorman Athletic Department as the equipment manager for the football, basketball and baseball teams from 1979 through 2001. Billy's devotion to the Gaels did not end with the sports he managed, his passion for everything orange and blue emanated from him. His attendance at every Gorman sporting event possible never faltered. The two things that were most important to Billy were Gorman and his family....Billy, you've touched all of our lives and will be deeply missed. We love you "Soulman."

Beckwith writes:

I forgot to mention that Billy was born mentally challenged. But, you see, it really did not matter, since Billy was more than the sum total of his parts. He was, and is, a person made in the image of God. He lived a good life, and for that, we are all better off for having known him and having witnessed the example he set for his community.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may perpetual Light shine upon him; may his soul and all souls, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

I never knew Mr. Raftery.  But I hope I will someday.

I wonder what suprises will we see when we have pierced the veil and walk on the other side of eternity.  Whose voices of love will we hear for the first time, because we considered silence more humane than the sound sobbing, presuming that pain cannot strengthen hearts.

If we are so impoverished as to think that that tragedies are curses, inescapable and inevitable, and can never be transformed into blessings, to what purpose is endurance? To what purpose is hope?

Yes, the world, and its people, are broken.  Some may think that we can remake the world anew.  But we do not have that kind of transformative power.  We can only remove or conceal our flaws, but this is not life, but death by a thousand small amputations.  And when we are honest with our brokenness, where does the incision end?  If hope fails, is nothing left but to make the final cut?

Can we live by suicide?

"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better."

-Ecclesiastes 7:3

"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any pain: for the former things are passed away.

And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.  And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful."

-Revelation 21:4-5.

A Bioethics of Love

This is by far the most interesting thing you will read this week.

Helen Rittelmeyer has written a piece detailing caring for a sister who is mentally retarded, and considering the ramifications of contemporary bioethics: namely, clarifying the crucial differences between the elimination and alleviation of suffering, and whether our impulses to eliminate suffering, rather than endure it, make us poorer in the long run.

A more mature version might be: A healthy interest in happiness is good, but only when tempered by a suspicion that happiness is less an ultimate goal than a side effect. A man could live a good life by pursuing virtue, personal excellence, love, or salvation, but, if he does nothing but chase pleasure for its own sake, his life will be happy—and very, very small.

So far, so uncontroversial. The missing link between the above summary and a grand narrative of cultural decline is this: As idle pleasures become more and more alluring, they become harder and harder to resist. One need not be a paranoiac about the decline of civilization to admit that leisure is more appealing than virtue, which demands greater sacrifices and promises less straightforward rewards. As our entertainments offer greater thrills at cheaper rates, the choice between the good fight and good fun starts to look obvious.

It used to be that crotchety bellwethers of decadence would nudge our country towards self-discipline by holding up its manliest heroes and reciting Teddy Roosevelt’s paean to men who dare (which made those Americans who could not so much as go to the store without assistance begin to feel very nervous). But different ages need different heroes. Other generations had to contend with the temptations of consumerism, luxury, and ever-increasing opportunities for laziness; ours has to contend with science. The fantasy is the same: the eradication of pain, and the eventual obsolescence of all those habits that feel awful but build character. Science in our day, like leisure in others, has improved so rapidly that its champions have begun to suspect that the age of painlessness is finally at hand.

...

To frame the idea in a different way, we all hope for our friends’ continual self-improvement: that our favorite penny-pincher will become more charitable, that our directionless nephew will discover some driving passion, that the melancholic next door will find inner peace. But in none of these cases would we want our friend to become someone else. They should become better, but should stay recognizably themselves. When a man’s disability is fundamental to his character, then there is no difference between wishing for a cure and wishing he were someone else. As Jim Sinclair put it in 1993, “It is not possible to separate autism from the person. Therefore, when parents say, ‘I wish my child did not have autism,’ what they’re really saying is, ‘I wish the autistic child I have did not exist and I had a different (non-autistic) child instead.’”

...

Love—whether it’s love for a sport, love for one’s sister, or love for humanity in all its forms, however grotesque—is the thing that makes a man say, “Sacrifice. That’s all.” Its yoke is easy, its burden light. Life with a disability involves sacrifices, some of which are merely onerous and should be eliminated, some of which cannot be eliminated without implicitly disputing love’s power to turn sacrifice into a gift.

Science has asked us to endorse its vision of a perpetually comfortable and easy world, and so we cannot help but make a firm choice, now, whether to celebrate self-discipline or to resent its necessity. If we choose the latter, we may soon find ourselves living in the world of Wall*E—painless, and pointless. If we choose the former, we may find that the prophets of our new asceticism are the deaf parents who decline cochlear implants for their newborn, the wheelchair-bound employee who finds nothing undignified about asking a co-worker for help every morning, the mother who carries a Down Syndrome baby to term—those who have had hardship thrust upon them and, nevertheless, have found some nobility in it.  Science and disability law will both continue to develop, but we must be careful in choosing the goal toward which their progress is directed.

You must read the piece in its entirety.