Climate Change - Fact, Fiction or Human Right

The Young Are Clamouring

I am not a global warming, climate change freak. We recycle, use those funny light bulbs, drive fuel efficient cars that we keep tuned, and leave our RV parked most of the time to conserve. We do other stuff too, in hopes that there will be a planet left for our grandchildren. But, I am not certain that there is any settled science about this issue either.

But, some of the rhetoric is starting to get to me.

Deborah Gyapong attended the Fill The Hill demonstration at the Parliament Buildings on the weekend. I wonder if it was more Fool on the Hill. She has this to say about it.
Deborah Gyapong: Fill the Hill demonstration on Climate Change

There she heard this pearl of wisdom.

One of the speakers said, "We don't want government to tell us to change our light bulbs. WE WANT GOVERNMENT TO CHANGE OUR LIVES."

That one was definitely a Fool on the Hill. The government has been changing our lives for ever. If it worked we would not be calling for more of it now, would we?

Now, over in Nova News today is an article titled "Wolfville student part of Canadian delegation for climate change". Thea Whitman, the grad student of the article went out on a limb with this quote:

Climate change has shown itself to be far more than an environmental issue: it’s a human rights issue. The consequences of climate change are already affecting livelihoods of people around the world, Whitman says, including Canada’s vulnerable northern communities.

So, now this unsettled science, and it is every bit that, is also a Human Right. Fortunately, she is over on the right coast, and maybe Barb Hall, who can make anything a human right will not hear it. The last thing that Barb needs is a new windmill to tilt at, because her boss, Dolton McGuff thinks that her sh?t doesn't stink. Now that's climate change for you.

I love the energy of our young people. This generation is going to cure all the ills of the world, just like we were going to, and likely with the same success we had. Too bad, they like us are being lied to.

I don't want to curb their enthusiasm, because that is an energy that should be used for good. Of course, climate change stuff like Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" are considered gospel, even if Gore himself doesn't live it. Opinions or science that does not support the principles of Inconvenient Truth is the actual inconvenient truth.

Take for example the Wall Street Journal report here claiming factually that the earth's temperatures have been going down for 12 years, reporting on the BBC item here.

There, of course is other scientific evidence that says that there is a lot of smoke and mirrors in this whole climate change thing, that the sun and not CO2 is the big determinant of temperature. Duh, never saw that one coming. And, of course the facts that 95% of all CO2 emissions are not man made, but from nature.

I am not in the least in favour of polluting our environment. Heck, I'll wear a CO2 catcher in my
underwear if it will help, and on that topic, I have read that cow flatulence is a big contributor to CO2 in the air. And I know that their sh?t stinks. I've spent enough time on dairy farms to know that.

But, let's think before we speak, and find out the truth. I think we are being lied to.

The Blog of Joshua and Steve

Still Freedom Through Truth - About Abortion

OK, it's still my blog, but when friends confront me with or present me with the truth, I want to share it with those who may read my blog. Consequently, when friend Joshua sent me this comment a short while ago, I once again wanted to create a separate post for it.

It is a valid response to the post I made last night of what Suzanne Fortin originally said in No Apologies, and which I shamelessly extracted and commented on here.

Here is what Joshua had to say:

It was my generation - or half of it, actually - that ushered in this abortion free-for-all. As men, however, the prevailing feminist ethos of the time insisted that we didn't have a horse in this race. "Our Bodies, Our Selves" and "my body, my choice" apparently applied to the female gender only. There was no "our" pronoun in the abortion debate, such as "what to do about OUR fetus". As such, men who dared voice their pro-life perspective were hushed up and/or ignored.

Around the time I reached 40, I learned that Canada - my country - permitted third trimester abortions. I couldn't believe it until I spoke to a friend's sister - a former RN - who left the profession the night she was assigned the job of holding an aborted seven-and-a-half-month fetus which had survived the abortion procedure until the baby died. "If that baby had come the natural way, we'd have been pulling out all the stops and we'd have saved another preemie," she explained, "but THIS baby I was told to hold and monitor until she died. IT TOOK THREE HOURS! I left my shift feeling so filthy." She was in tears by this point. "I called in my resignation the next day. I never worked as a nurse again."

I was DUMBSTRUCK when I learned this. Since then, there's not an opportunity to talk the truth about "abortion" which I don't take.

Abortion is murder, and this nurse's story serves to underline that fact.Abortion is discriminatory insofar as it is probably more common among the lower economic classes of Canadian society. Appealing to Canadians' sense of egalitarianism on this issue is a half-measure which will likely result in some bizarre piece of legislation acknowledging that, despite the disproportionate incidence of abortion among the lower economic classes of Canadian society, every Canadian life terminated in this manner was/is/will be of "equal value" - i.e. no value at all. Once the state has legislated "no value" to the life of a fetus, we are just a couple of turns away from the state declaring that same about citizens' lives overall. Hello totalitarianism!

While I agree that "Abortion is discriminatory" is LESS OFFENSIVE and thus, perhaps, a more marketable concept than "Abortion is murder", it is also only half-as-true (if that).

No matter which way you slice it, the actual debate necessitates - at some point - the quick summation of each side's perspective. On the pro-life side, that summation IS "Abortion is murder. There is no way around that fact and that reality. Anything else smacks of semantics and compromise.

Reducing "Abortion is murder" to "Abortion is discriminatory" is akin to watering down "God is all powerful" to "God's a REALLY, REALLY strong entity."

Arr half-truths spoken by those who know the whole truth the same thing as lies?

Marketing the FACT that abortion is murder is a Pandora's Box if ever there was one. Then again, who could WATCH a "health care worker" hold a live fetus in
his/her arms for three hours until the s/he died?

You can't avoid the truth when you know it already. Or maybe I'm missing something here...

Thank you, Joshua. There is no doubt in my mind, and I know in the mind of Suzanne Fortin and others in the pro-life movement that Abortion is Murder of the most defenseless people in our society. One of Suzanne's last paragraphs included the following:

Does the adoption of a human-rights framework mean that we have to put aside all our religious-based objections to abortion? Not by any means. One of the most important things that pro-lifers must understand about a social movement is that it must be complex and include a wide variety of approaches and strategies – sometimes competing against one another. There is no magic bullet in this fight. Every perspective or tactic is a channel through which a small number of people will engage.

I said that Pro-lifers can work with this, and I believe it to be true, true that we can work with it. For people who are pro-life, we can never forget that abortion is the taking of a life, where the owner of that life taken has no say in its taking. So, who will speak up for that child, who is unwanted by its own parents, as least momentarily, long enough for it to be put to death?

The point that I was trying to make is that there is some leverage in human rights as a separate component of the overall strategy that has merit. For friend Joshua, I am reminded of another Joshua, in the bible, who when confronted with an enemy too big to defeat, relied on God, and went out to do battle with that foe. The enemy got confused somehow, and basically killed themselves in their confusion. So, God turned the strength of the attacking force on itself, thus destroying it.

If God is putting a bug in Suzanne's and other pro-life people's ears to use the strength of the enemies of life to get them confused and to destroy their own pro-death cause, then as Gamaliel in the book of Acts said:

"For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."

We need more Joshua's, both my friend and his namesake in this day and age. As a man, I feel a corporate sense of shame that men, who contribute to the DNA of every child on earth, have not as one stood up and said: "Abortion is Murder. It is wrong. We will defend our born and unborn children even to our own deaths. We will protect our women as bearers of our children, because that is our vocation in life."

Thank you Joshua.

Pregnant and Surprised

Some Good Advice from Robin Anderson

I took Robin Anderson to task recently, as did Scary Fundamentalist on the left coast here. After all, she is the winner of Sun Media's national advice competition. Well, here is a question to her, and an answer that is more worthy of a winner of an advice competition. Just a question though, how to you gauge a winner of an advice competition, like you gauge "likely to expose to hatred or contempt"? Just asking.

Here is the question she got asked:

I am married to a great guy and things have been amazing. I just found out that I am pregnant, though, and don't know what to do. When we married, he made it pretty clear that he wanted to wait a while before we had children. We are young, he is in the military and wanted to make sure we were secure and somewhat settled before we started a family. He was an "accident" and felt that he wasn't wanted by his parents. That fact was brought up quite a bit when he was young and I think it still bothers him. I am worried that the news of our pregnancy won't be well received. Is there anything I can say to soften the blow? Do you think he will be OK with it even though it may interrupt our plans to travel, etc.? -- PREGNANT PAUSE

How cute, a pregnant pause. I guess it was really the pause that got her pregnant. Anyway, Ms. Anderson responds:

First of all, let me say congratulations on your pregnancy. I don't know your husband, so I can't predict how he is going to react. You said he wanted to wait, but didn't indicate who was in charge of the birth control, or if there was any. It doesn't really matter, because even with all the birth control in the world, sometimes there is an "oops." What is important is that you raise the child with as much love and care as you would if it was planned.

I can understand your husband wanting to wait until you were a bit more established, but honestly, if everyone waited for the perfect time to have a child, when all the bills are paid and life is peachy keen, there would be a very low birth rate. You are just going to have to put your travel plans on hold for a few years. There is no way to "soften the blow," as you say. He may surprise you and be overjoyed. If not, he may be upset initially, but that, too, should pass. Don't stress yourself over it, it's not good for you and you have someone else to worry about now.

Your husband will most likely come around once the shock wears off. If you want to give him a little food for thought, tell him your children -- providing you aren't planning to have a baseball team -- will be grown up when you are still young. This way you can get them to house-sit while you jet around the world. If your husband is as great as you say, I think you will be just fine.

Well, I consider myself very Catholic, particularly after trying to do things my own way for so much of my life. So I believe in the principles espoused in Pope Paul's encyclical Humanae Vitae. I also believe in the methods of birth regulation that the Church favours. Accordingly, I do not have fondness for birth control, and the means used to control birth. But that at the moment is a philosophical discussion and not germane to the good advice given to Pregnant Pause.

It is an answer more worthy of someone who is esteemed enough to win the Sun Media advice competition.

She, of course doesn't say what to do if hubby does not want to step up to his Vocation as a husband and father. Hopefully, Ms. Anderson does not get a second letter about that question, because hopefully Hubby embraces this new opportunity in his life.

God Bless Pregnant Pause, and her husband and unborn child. Keep them safe, Dear Lord.

Deborah Gyapong blogs the JUST Hearing Yesterday

Deborah Gyapong on J Ly et al on Parliament Hill

J Ly and Burnie went up the hill
To spread a load of manure
J Ly came down, someone please take her crown
And Burnie fell flat on his face.

Deborah has pictures and words to show from her trip to view the proceedings at the JUST committee. Her insights and links are valuable to note. I give her full marks for being able to stomach this stuff. Read her take at the link below.

Deborah Gyapong: Moon the hero of the committee hearing

Even He Who Will Not Be Named in My Blog was there. Deborah has pics of his mug.

By Jove I Think She's got It

Suzanne Fortin of Blue Wave Writes

Suzanne Fortin sometimes publishes over at No Apologies, as here. To paraphrase Suzanne, fighting against a thing, actually gives it power, and exercises it. But, if you use its own power against it, by tapping into it, you may in fact disrupt it.

As Suzanne writes, the pro-life movement engaged the pro-choice movement from the beginning as follows:

Once upon a time, the pro-life movement in Canada had one focus: to pass an abortion ban. And it had one slogan: Abortion is murder.

And we thought that was all we needed to win the fight: to be right about the issue and remind people of the truth.

Lots of grassroots pro-lifers in the pews think this way.

But, some of the smarter pro-life folks are concluding that that strategy is not so successful. As Dr. Phil says: How's that working for ya? Not so good really. And Einstein mused that insanity was continuing to do the same thing time and again, expecting a different result from your efforts. So where have the pros gone with this? They have seen that the strategy needs revision, as she writes further:

But almost no “professional” pro-lifer uses this slogan anymore.

And with good reason: It’s a useless slogan.

To the wider culture, the slogan is meaningless and moralizing. It is meaningless because the fetus is not widely acknowledged to be a human being, let alone a person. It is moralizing because it focuses on our opposition to a “sin”, a sin whose definition in the minds of most is entirely religious in nature.

“Abortion is murder” does not even adequately reflect the real goals of the movement. Our goal is not just the eradication of abortion – although that would be nice. Abortion bans can be easily overturned. Nor should pro-lifers simply be happy with a “personhood amendment” in the constitution. In some countries, Germany and Chile for example, the right to life is recognized from conception, but abortions are still permitted.

So, abortion is murder, though true is not working as a tag line. What options are there? Well, Suzanne has this to say:

Our true goal is to end the discrimination against unborn children in all its forms.

In light of this, our slogan should be: Abortion is discriminatory.

In Canada, human rights are not a matter of opinion. They are absolutes. In fact, many people would not have a moral framework if they could not use rights-based language.

But a human rights approach to the culture of life issues is more global than the traditional anti-abortion perspective. And it needs to be. There are other threats to preborn babies, such as destructive research on embryos. In vitro fertilization not only results in the killing or freezing of prenatal humans, but the process itself makes babies into commodities, and undermines the unconditional love we should have for our children. Indeed, the whole contraceptive culture is built on the idea that unexpected and imperfect children are unwanted intrusions that will drag us down.

So, using the energy of the prime motivation of pro-choice folks, the right of a woman to choose, but turning it to the child or even using the pro-choice neutral term "fetus", there is a strength coming from mother to child that has untapped power:

Fetal rights goes even beyond the life-and-death issues. Consider, for instance, the language we use with respect to the unborn child. Traditional English grammar sanctions the use of the pronoun “it” for babies and fetuses. This only perpetuates the objectification of children and should be dropped in favour of personal pronouns like “he” and “she”. I also believe that we should more commonly use the word “fetus”. Many pro-lifers hate that word because pro-aborts use it to dehumanize the unborn. I take the view that if we can transform the word “fetus” so that it conjures up all the warm and fuzzy feelings that the word “baby” does, we can take away one more instrument of oppression from our opposition.

But, here are Suzanne's ideas for the pro-life movement in a human rights context:

Does the adoption of a human-rights framework mean that we have to put aside all our religious-based objections to abortion? Not by any means. One of the most important things that pro-lifers must understand about a social movement is that it must be complex and include a wide variety of approaches and strategies – sometimes competing against one another. There is no magic bullet in this fight. Every perspective or tactic is a channel through which a small number of people will engage. As those small groups of people accumulate into one big group, it will make for a stronger pro-life movement. We should not get bogged down by infighting by political or religious litmus tests to see who gets to participate. Being open to newcomers means that we can’t be too stringent in saying who gets to be a fellow traveler, and who doesn’t.

That’s how human rights movements work, after all. When they are sufficiently multi-faceted to foster alliances with a range of different populations, that’s how they manage to achieve their goals. We cannot continue to be the movement that has one goal, that says one slogan or and that includes only one group of people into its fold.

Brilliant. Leverage what is, and what people see in front of their noses, but tune it towards the desired objective. Pro-lifers can work with this. I like it.

Fatherhood As a Vocation

Joshua Shares More of Family Love

Moving on from a delightful dissertation on Compassion, Joshua comes back to his second favourite vocation. Fatherhood:

So I felt a vocational calling to fatherhood. I knew I wanted to be a dad from the moment I knew I was in love with the girl who would eventually become my wife.

My own Dad died when I was 16. I needed my father so much at that age, and he was ripped from our family overnight - without warning and at the age of 50 - by a heart attack. The next half decade of my life was characterized by dissent, descent, and distance from all things "family". So reconnecting with the idea of fatherhood was very different indeed when it was suddenly awakened within me. naturally, the whole concept and dynamic of "family' proved fodder for hours of private rumination.

The kids are grown now and off on their own. In hindsight, I believe that shared and mutual love is the basis of genuine functional family and healthy human development. In my own family's case, I would include in that recipe a shared and mutual love for, and relationship with, God.

My beloved wife is HUGE on love - her heart is enormous and her energy is boundless. She is also one very determined lady. HER family, she promised herself, would be nurtured on love, thrive on love, and - with the love of God - bound by love as a family. The bonds of familial love are, like the bond of love with the Creator, a LIBERATING force which promotes the fulfillment of individual human potential. And what better way to praise God than to do the very best with the gifts He has given you?

Now, when things are shared and mutual, they are also TALKED ABOUT at the family dinner table. Every telephone conversation I have with my adult and manly sons ends with them saying: "Gotta run, Dad. Bye now. I love you." My daughters- and sons-in-law admit they had to "adjust" to this "new normal" - love wasn't as openly shared in their birth families. And this isn't just a "family protocol". The words are not "tossed off" like a salutory greeting. The are "measured" and delivered in such a way as to ensure that I "hear" that love. It melts my heart a little more each and every time.

But LOVE ALWAYS PREVAILS.

Today, when I chat with the sons- or daughters-in-law, they, too, end up closing with "I love you, Dad." And they mean it, too.

And I return their love. Every time.

It might seem "corny" to some, but I note that "our" family values are the ones that predominate in our children's homes and families. This is not a point of "personal pride" to me but only more evidence that LOVE ALWAYS PREVAILS.

But I suspect it might be hard to toe this line if you don't enjoy a personal and committed relationship with God. It seems to me that, without God in your life, that love never seems as strong or as resilient, and often is broken (dysfunctional families). The presence of God in your life brings strength and resilience to every aspect of your life, including your capacity for/to love.

At least, from my humble, theist, God-loving perspective...

Love Always Prevails either in Vocation or Compassion or both together.

More On Compassion

A Friend's Thoughts With Mine Added

I thought that my friend would have something to say here, and I am glad he did. Here is what a friend, Joshua, commented to my last Posting on (Com)Passion:

There are particular words - very important ones - that we hear and read less frequently than before. When important words fall into obscurity, we risk losing the connection with what they mean/represent.

"Compassion" and "vocation" come to mind almost immediately as "threatened words". And - I hesitate to point this out but... - social activism and volunteerism have not filled the void left by "the vocational calling" etc to medicine/healing, the priesthood, a religious order, public service.

Imagine how different our country might be if individual members of our political elites actually felt a "vocational calling to serve Canadians and Canada". Instead, we have "career politicians" many of whom have never worked for any sustained period of time in the kind of employment situations common to Canadian citizens.

Compassion is a whole different matter. In a world in which empathy is often misplaced and just as frequently turned on its head completely by our media and courts, genuine compassion has become lost in the mists of time.

Webster's Dictionary defines compassion as "...pity aroused by the distress of others, with the desire to help them." And I think that is a good secular definition of the word.

In matters spiritual, however, I believe compassion assumes a greater importance as it addresses a fundamental value of Christianity. For purposes our our discussion, then, I would suggest "compassion" be defined without reference to "pity".

I suggest we replace "pity" with "love". Pity should not incite/motivate us to help and support those in need, our living Christian love should do that.

"Pity" can be acquired/elicited through deception by fraudsters of myriad descriptions.

But I know one thing about love: LOVE ALWAYS PREVAILS

Maybe I shouldn't argue with dictionaries...

I'd much rather discuss these things here with you people.

Amen, Brother.

So, a definition of Compassion would be: "love aroused by the distress of others, with the desire to help them."

So, in that context, a number of moves to increase volunteerism, like in the US, Disney giving a day at their theme park for a day of volunteering, and students in Ontario high school needing 40 hours of volunteer work to graduate do not by their nature raise Compassion. It is highly possible that some people will be moved by the people that they have volunteered to assist, to follow an urging that has arisen in their hearts to do more, but there is no guarantee.

My dear wife has often told me when I have suggested doing this or that, that if it is not in my heart, don't do it. To prove her wrong, I did some things anyway. She was right, me not at all. We all have in our hearts the desire to make the world better for others. That it is getting trained out of us, as we leave it to the government to do, is turning us into less that we have all been called to be.

Let us all stir up Compassion that is within each of us to make the world better in love and charity. Call it volunteerism if you must, but as my dear wife would tell you, do it from your heart. In fact, I suggest that before jumping in and breaking others hearts by doing a bump and run that you let it percolate a bit, so you know that you know that this is what you want to do for others, because of the love that is pouring from your heart. If you follow my wife's advice, it won't be volunteerism, though it will look on the outside like it. It will be Compassion.

And actually, even more importantly, it may then become a vocation, like the family in Philo IL, last night on Extreme Home Makeover, who have dedicated their lives, as a family to making food and clothing available to those who would otherwise do without at their food bank, so aptly called Salt & Light. If you saw the show, you saw the light that was in their eyes from youngest to oldest. And they were definitely salt to all those around them.

One moment in the show was poignant for us. At Disney World, the family opened a package that had a model of their old house in it, and a note that said Mortgage Paid In Full. My wife and I were sure that what went through the minds of the family, especially the parents was that the money they had to gather each month for a mortgage payment could now go to the food bank.

They do not do what they do to get a new house from ABC, nor for their own glory. They do it because they have acted on the Compassion stirred in their hearts. You can see it in their eyes.

(Com)Passion and Power

What Are Society's Motivators?

A friend pointed out to me the other day that I was operating with Passion, but not Compassion in a particular discourse. Truth be told, it is easy to drop the Com from Compassion in day to day life. But really, gentle readers, aren't we all called to walk with Compassion for our fellow man?

For my wife and me this has meant that we do our charity locally more than just sending cheques to organisations. We do support our local Church, and charities that we believe are doing good work, but much of what we do is more hands on now. We can do this in part because we have nothing but time on our hands, but also because we realise that it is the right thing for us to do.

Today, we are working on a quilt because a member of one of the quilt guilds that my wife is a participant in, challenged members to make quilts for youngsters who through no fault of their own are forced with a parent to find refuge from abuse in a shelter.

But, what of goverment? Take Human Rights, for example. OK, I will. We have government bureaucracies in charge of ferreting out human rights wrongs, and making them right. That just seems so wrong to me. It is, to me, and example of "Let the government do it." Why? Do they have a passion for this work? Sure doesn't look like it to me, if you take the shenanigans of J Ly and her band of cronies at the CHRC as an example? Ditto, Barb Hall and her folks at the OHRC. And don't get me started on Alberta, or BC for that matter.

While J Ly chases after pretend Nazis, and publishers, she does so at the expense of free speech in this country. Ask Marc Lemire how it feels to have his life put on hold for 6 years, and his back account empty, while the J Ly bunch pillory him and lie about him along the way to get a conviction, which in the end was hollow and opens doors to real freedom of speech in this country.

Ask Stephen Boissoin over in Alberta how it feels to be gagged by the Alberta HRC because what he said was not politically correct? It doesn't matter if he can prove the truth of what he says, because as we have all learned, truth is not a defence at the HRCs.

And in Ontario, the Barb Hallers are chasing after landlords, transit systems, and the like to bring "equality" to us all. Did anybody ask us if we wanted it or believed it was even real? See what George Jonas said about the elusive equality. He called it a Chimera with good reason.

Is there any Compassion in their work? Sure isn't any visible. They are paid to bring people down for discrimination of some sort or other, and are in marketing to make sure they have enough business to justify their sinecures. They even invent new human rights beyond the Charter along the way.

Is there Passion in their work? Maybe, but hard to tell. No, I think it is about Power, political power. I have seen too many cases that have no basis in the fundamental rights and freedoms that our Charter guarantees us.

The Barb Hall's of this world live for power, the ability to enforce made up rights is a good place to have power, because you make it up as you go.

Let's have a revolution, you and me. Let's work at treating our family first, then our neighbours, then the rest of our community with respect and dignity. Let's us stand up for Charter fundamental human rights, not hopey changey ones that are being thrust on us. Some wag said long ago: "Charity begins are home." So, let's try it. Let's make government redundant in areas of helping others. Let's care about one another without regard for religion or political, or other beliefs.

Oh, for this to work, we need a new attitude shift as well. Forget taking offence when someone says something against your beliefs. As one friend said to me more than once: "Suck it up Buttercup." Instead of filing a Form 1 with Barb or whatever the form is in another province or federally, spread love. Why, because "Love Does Not Take Offence."

Stop letting the government do it. Do it yourself. If you want to reduce taxes, get rid of the government meddling in your life at every turn. Make it only some turns, where they can do a better job than we can. They cannot look after our neighbour better than we can. Make them leave, because they are not needed.

Weaning away from government intervention everywhere we look won't be easy. They don't want to shrink, and we are usually too lazy to stop them.

Wake Up folks. It's our turn now.

A Friend's Parenting Story

Parenting is Not for the Weak of Heart

Parenting is tough work on your own, even with 2 parents who love their children. Sometimes, the best of parents come up with neat tools to assist them in this onerous, but rewarding work.

A friend sent me this really neat story that is a way that he and his wife shared faith with their kids, and how it mattered day to day:

I remember once explaining to my children why their Mommy and I implemented time-outs, grounding and other disciplinary measures when they broke rules or disobeyed our direct instruction. A family, I explained, is like a small flock of sheep - a small flock which is part of a much larger one because, for sheep, there is safety in numbers. We need to make sure that "safe practices" govern our behaviours because there are - truth be told - wolves out there. Wolves hunt sheep, as we all know. So breaking that code of safe practices doesn't only imperil the the one who breaks the code, but potentially imperils the entire flock!

So, I explained, every small flock of sheep is "herded" by a really cute and funny little sheepdog named Percival aka Percival Perseverance. "Percy's" job was to make sure the little flock stayed together with that much larger flock, so as many sheep as possible could live safely. And Percy applies himself DOGGEDLY to the task. There is simply no escaping Percy's keen eye.

So when a sheep - especially a little sheep aka lamb - strayed from its little flock, Percy would run round the sheep, barking and carrying on. "Get back with the flock, silly! You're endangering EVERYBODY including your mummy and Daddy, your brothers and sisters! Move it, silly face!"

If such admonishments and behaviours didn't serve to route the errant sheep back to its rightful flock, Percy might have to "nip-nip-nip!" at its heels. Sheep do NOT like to have their heels nipped at! Especially the girl sheep, who pay especially high prices for their footwear.

One way or another, Percy almost always gets his way. On those RARE occasions when Percy is unable to get an errant sheep to rejoin its flock, the errant sheep is never EVER seen again by any of the other flock.

"Only God knows where the sheep that refuse to come back end up, or what happens to them," I would conclude. "Because we are all God's sheep, and God never forgets a single one of his flock. But those sheep that went off like that - well - the other sheep have other fish to fry and tend to forget about them over time. The flock is WAY too busy making sure everybody has enough to eat and is safe to worry about the other sheep FOREVER. But God never forgets them, even if they choose to leave His flock.

And Jehovah says somewhere in the Scripture - I reduce it to how I explained it to my kids way back when - "You gotta give a little to get a little back. And when you're taking with God, does it EVER work? Give little here, give a little there, until you've given it all to God throughout every level of life, because the giving is the only thing that you CAN take with you when you finally check out. God remembers everything. Nothing and nobody is ever really lost."

When parents are committed to loving their children and bringing them up in faith, in hopes that they too will come to know God personally, they use lots of tools, because they have been equipped with lots of tools. Discipline is one. To not discipline our children in love is to not really love them, nor does lack of discipline prepare them for the world that awaits them. And in disciplining them, to give them stories and morals that they can relate to is a gift. My friend and his wife were pretty good at it.

I would have enjoyed knowing them when I was younger and raising my own kids. This would have been a nice tool to have in the arsenal of family building.

Archbishop Currie's Closing Joke

A Newfie, Even Adopted Has To Leave Them Laughing

Archbishop Currie told this story to close his homily this morning:

Last year, at the final game of the World Series, a man noticed the empty seat beside him, and a woman on her own in the next seat. It was now about the 3rd inning, and it seemed that nobody was coming to take the seat. He asked the woman why the seat was empty.

The woman replied that it was her husband's seat, but that he had passed away.

The man asked why none of the family members or friends had taken the ticket, as they were hard to come by.

She replied that she had offered the ticket to family and to friends, but none had taken her up on the offer. She said they seemed to prefer to go to his funeral, instead.