7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol 3)

Once again it is time to cast around in the depths of the week for some interesting stuff.  As always you can read more accounts over at Conversion Diary

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1 – Ok so I don’t own a Kindle, I sort of have a bad history when it comes to electronic devices. If I were to buy a Kindle then there is a reasonable chance it would get wet, stepped on or incinerated within the first 3 months. Hence I won’t actually buy one until they have gone down in price to about £50 – if that doesn’t happen then so be it.

What I have found however is the Kindle Reader for PC on the Amazon site – which, as I suspect everyone but me knew, lets me download and read Kindle books on my laptop (which, by the way, also functions as my office PC, my leisure browsing PC, my Kindle Reader as of now AND the occasional flat surface on which to stack drinks in the lounge – please don’t think I am joking on that last one).

Currently priced at £0.00 were a number of books including ‘Orthodoxy’, ‘All things considered’ and ‘Heretics’ by G.K Chesterton which I have been wanting to read for a while. That has saved me about £40. Result.

2 -  I have decided to take a chance and have a go at being a freelance writer. You may remember I was mulling that over last week as well. During the week I was looking into it in a bit more detail and I think that it is almost perfect for me at the moment. I can work from home and if I am really lucky then I might even manage to improve the quality of my posts on this blog.

Of course if this does pay off and I do end up making a steady income from it (and I know that is something I will have to build up to) then it will allow me to demonstrate that ‘stability of lifestyle’ and ‘freedom of choice’ that I need to be able to in order to progress forward in terms of vocation etc.

Watch this space.

3 – I posted before about the new series being run over at  Day in the Life  exploring ‘the wives’ vocation’.

This series has now started with an excellent guest post by Kaylene of the Letters from Momma blog. In it she describes her experiences of the calling to be a wife and also manages to get her husband to say that it is a partnership – Without coercion! – read the post (and see some of the cutest baby photos)  here.

Whilst on the subject of babies – a topic you note that I will do my best to avoid for at least another 6 months after this post – I ought to tell you that I appear to have been imbued with a special talent by the Lord. Whenever I pick up a baby I can almost guarantee that it will immediately, and joyfully, fill its nappy. This naturally leads to the awkward feeling a fem moments later when holding said baby that is just a little bit more.. um.. Soft… than it ought to be and then you begin to notice the smell.

So it is with absolute amazement that I read the blogs of Catholic mothers out there who have had more than one baby. Leila over at Little Catholic Bubble has had eight to bring up – which in my book puts her somewhere between saint and martyr – and has written an exceptionally good piece about raising her children in the faith. Please do go along and have a look.

Sample quote:

“If we don’t raise our children to be moral first and foremost, then we miss the point of parenthood entirely. We have enough financially successful, popular and “happy” degenerates out in the world already. What we can never have enough of is saints.“

Go and have a look for the rest.

4 – I honestly forget which  blogger said it (and if anyone knows then please say and I will attribute it properly to them) but I remember recently reading someone’s summary of the continuity of the doctrine of the eucharist.

To paraphrase them – if the protestant argument is correct it would mean that as soon as the apostles and their students died then the entire church from coast to coast fell into immediate, irrevocable and universal heresy and remained there until around about the 1530′s when the Lord inspired the reformation and the overturning of false doctrines.

Naturally there are a large number of arguments that could be placed against that presumption, not least those from scripture claiming the Holy Spirit would guide us and that Christ would be with us always.

Anyway, moving on from that but on the same theme, there is a good post by Joe Heschemeyer over at Shameless Popery which explores why the Catholic church cannot just be another denomination – it is either unequivocally right OR the most abject of heresy (go on, pick one…). A thoughtful post well worth reading if you have ten minutes to spare. I particularly liked the wording of the conclusions reached.

[Update: I think it was this post on Young, Evangelical & Catholic that inspired this entry.]

5 – Are you involved in a Prayer Chain? For anyone who has not come across the concept it is simply a group of people who agree to be contacted with prayer requests. Some chains have a named person who will initiate the prayer after they receive the request – then each member who receives it will pass it on until the last member sends a confirmation back to the initiator that everyone has received it (these tend to be run by text / mobile phones).

The second type tends to work by other means such as email. I am a branch co-ordinator for a christian bikers prayer chain which covers the UK. There are 35 branches and we all receive requests from a national co-ordinator (we can also send requests up from our own areas to be forwarded on).

When I receive a request I send it on to all the members in my branch. What this means is that within a few hours a request for prayer can be sent out for someone who is critically ill after having had a motorcycle accident in Brighton, and by the evening that person and their family will be remembered in prayer right across the UK.

If you are still fishing around for a resolution for the new year how about joining a prayer chain or setting one up in your parish or deanery?

6 – Something that I was tempted to use the nationwide prayer chain for, but in the end didn’t, was the loss of one of the few things I really enjoy watching on television. Now I don’t have satellite or cable TV so when Channel 4 show their once weekly American Football match through the season I tend to stay up and watch it – even though it starts at about 01:30 in the morning.

Sadly, and as always, Channel 4 haven’t bothered to schedule in playoff games and so my watching came to an abrupt end last week and I have to check the internet to find out who will be going to the Superbowl – which ironically will be shown.

Sigh.. grumble.

7 – As I mentioned earlier in the week I am meeting with a vocations animator from one of the Franciscan orders today – probably at the same time some of you are reading this. Could I once again ask for your prayers for that meeting. Thank you. I will try to post about what we discussed sometime next week – possibly after I have had a chance to discuss it with my spiritual director on Wednesday.

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Well that is just a few little picks from some of the things that have been of interest this week. I hope everyone out there has a good weekend.

LF

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