I've been playing some PSVR2 off-and-on over the past few weeks, and recorded a short montage video of some funny things from both the "Arizona Sunshine Remake" and "Arken Age". I also found myself snapping a lot of screenshots, click on any of them for the full-sized versions.

While I was praying a couple of nights ago, the Holy Spirit told me to study the virtues. So I hopped over to my laptop, did some research, and wrote up the below reference sheet:



This has already helped me a ton! I was frustrated by something very recently, and a church friend told me the same thing my friend Jim has been saying, just in different words: her way of putting it was to let the Holy Spirit guide me, and if I'm allowing that to happen then I needn't worry beyond that.

As I was putting the above sheet together, I realized that I was lacking in all of these to varying degrees, but in some far more than others. And it's those shortfalls which are causing me to, for instance, exhibit anger after a frustrating experience rather than meekness. That's just one example, there are others.

Also as I was praying that night, words rapidly formed in my head. I reached for the pencil as quickly as I could and jotted them down, unsure if they meant anything meaningful or not.

1. Condemn those who lie.
2. Pursue truth and light.
3. Exhort others to sin no more.
4. Wield God as sword and shield.
5. Pursue virtue as the path to righteousness.
6. Be a parent to all but with the humility of a child.
7. Love the sinner.
8. Strive for reconciliation.
9. Woe to those who seek death.
10. Experience rebirth into new light.
11. The foolhardy value tradition over prophecy.

Most of these seem self-explanatory, but I was confused by a couple of them. Number 6, be a parent to all? I suppose that's some variance of helping shepherd people towards God? Number 9, the seeking death one is interesting, I took that metaphorically-- replace "death" with "sin".

But the last one, number 11, totally stumped me-- I might ask my priest friend if it means anything to him. I may have also written it down backwards: maybe it was "prophecy over tradition"? That one came very fleetingly, not sure if I "heard" it properly. It may just be gibberish too.

My friend Jim sent me some more faith-related advice, which I thought I'd share with the rest of you!

He relayed to me that the Bible isn't something which is meant to be read like a book, cover-to-cover-- rather, it's something where you pick out pieces and prayerfully meditate on them. The good news is that I've already been keeping that in mind! I fell into that mistake with the Old Testament a couple of years ago and got burnt out, because contextually I had no idea what I was even reading half the time.

But the reminder was still timely, in the sense that I've been viewing scripture in two ways: the first is as a source of study, which is what I've been writing about here. I read the Gospels, then Acts since it follows those, and now I'm on a Paul kick. But I'll go wherever I feel inspired next, taking lots of notes as I go. I really want to treat this as a "first pass" on scripture, then I can spend the rest of my life doing deep dives. For now I feel like I just need to read it!

The second-- and this is where the reminder is especially helpful-- is to incorporate scripture more into my prayer life using techniques like Lectio Divina. And this is what my friend is getting at: pausing, praying, and reflecting. I haven't quite figured out the best way. My priest friend suggested the Magnificat, which has the daily Mass in it along with reflections for the readings-- he uses it to help himself with writing homilies for the week day Masses, for instance.

Another thing my friend said to me is to focus on God, who He is, and what He says about me. My friend thinks I'm trying to control outcomes-- and he's absolutely, one hundred percent correct.

His suggestion is to discern, in all aspects but in particular related to my church involvement, what am I being called by the Lord to do, versus what do I feel obligated to do to "help out". For those things in the former category, God will direct me and handle the outcomes! For the things in the latter category, He has no obligation to see them succeed, which makes sense.

Interestingly, I'd been talking to my wife about this just a few days ago, and it's a work-in-progress. Things I am completely and absolutely sure I'm being called to do: apply to the diaconate; and my liturgical ministry involvement. He's given me zillions of totally obvious signs and signals regarding those-- I'm stubborn and wasn't listening, so He continually amped them up until I did listen.

But some of the other things, I'm not so certain about. They fall in various places on the spectrum of "I'm not sure if I'm called", to "I kind of got myself roped into this one, and it's not necessarily a great fit." If I do get accepted into the diaconate formation, I am perfectly comfortable with setting some boundaries and rolling off of certain things-- because I'll have to; borne out of necessity!

The final thing my friend is helping me with are my sleep issues. He sent me the following: Proverbs 3:24; 2 Tim 1:7; Psalm 4:8; Isaiah 26:3. All of those are absolutely fantastic-- I will sit with and absorb them. My current sleep issues seem to be Circadian Rhythm based; I think I did a number on myself during those super stressful weeks recently. I've been feeling really good from an anxiety standpoint lately, yet the sleep has still been very poor.

I feel very blessed to have people like Jim and my priest friend, helping me through my fledgling spiritual journey!

Been a few days since I've posted, not a whole heck of a lot going on! The wife and I have our insurance situations all-but-finalized now, basically just ready to put pen to paper-- so that's a relief! Helped our ninety year-old priest last Monday, then led a Pastoral Council meeting on Tuesday.

I start my new job on October 13-- just two weeks away, I'm super excited to finally be back into a job I think I'll love-- which being totally frank, hasn't been the case since 2004 when I worked at that non-profit place.

Other than that, have finally been able to get back to some video games! I started playing "Donkey Kong Bananza" again. It's a good game, but there's no aspect of it which is making me love it; actually, it's kind of overstaying its welcome a bit, and from the looks of a walkthrough I'm not even half-way through the game, which isn't a good sign.

I also started up "Astro Bot", another game I never finished. I'm on what looks like the last level, and am seven bots away from one hundred percent according to the in-game counter. This last level says it contains five of those, not certain where the last two will be. I also on a whim started up "Gran Turismo 7", at some point they added "weekly challenges", and I was actually having a lot of fun with those yesterday, earning some big cash!

Also at some point, they added my wife's car, the GR Corolla! It's the version of the car with no back seats in the game, but cosmetically and from the outside it looks identical to our real life example: carbon fiber roof, black accent pieces like the rear spoiler, and so forth. They even had it in white in the game! So now if I could ever rope the wife into it, we could race our real-life cars against each other right in the game: GR86 versus GR Corolla!

I also appreciate the PS5 Pro enhancements in the game: you can get ray-traced reflections in race, with the 120 Hz mode and VRR enabled! I don't know what framerate it's hitting exactly, but it's definitely higher than sixty as it looks insanely smooth, and at a reconstructed 4K resolution to boot.

Outside of video games, we have a big overnight campout at our church tonight. As part of that my friend Gary and I are going to cobble together a makeshift outdoor A/V setup so people can watch movies outdoors via a projector we have. Should be a great time, pot-luck dinner as well. Anyone who lives in my area is more than welcome to stop by!

I talked to my priest friend last night about this post, and as always he explained everything to me in a way even I can understand!

Regarding the Saint Faustina bit, he cautioned me to remember that she was being asked to do extraordinary things-- and that the diary was a private writing: she was most likely telling herself what she needed, in that moment, to feel closer to God. His suggestion was that I not generalize too much from it beyond that.

About St. Paul, he said that Paul uses "works" in three different ways through his writings-- so each time you encounter that word, you need to very carefully deduce which "works" he's referring to. Generally speaking, he talks a lot about how blind adherence to the law does not obtain for you salvation-- that you need to believe in and love God for salvation. So in the passage I quoted, this is most likely what Paul was talking about.

As for the James portion, it's kind of "what you see is what you get"-- his point is very clear, and there isn't anything present which Paul would necessarily disagree with.


Mega Drive Appreciation

My dad bought a Sega Genesis for us in early spring, 1990-- so we were early adopters for sure! Only a handful of games were out. As you can see, a huge chunk of my favorite games of all time list is from that platform. I loved it as a kid, and still love the Genesis today! After the 3DO, it's my second favorite game system of all time.

• The VDP: Sega's engineers from that era were incredible at making VDPs. Compare the graphics capabilities of the Master System to the NES, for example-- not even close. In the case of the Mega Drive, that sucker can do parallax scrolling like nobody's business, and the output is so unbelievably smooth compared to the PC Engine or Super NES that even when comparing 60 fps titles across them, somehow the Genesis games move like butter in comparison. It's hard to even describe.


• The CPU: I don't know how Sega managed to fit this into the bill of materials for a $200 video game system, but they crammed a freaking Motorola 68000 into the design. Just a few years prior the 68k was reserved only for very expensive (by comparison) computers, like the Atari ST or Amiga. Or for military use. Having one of these monsters in a cheap games console continues to blow my mind to this day.


• The Audio: With all due respect to people who prefer DSP music, for my money absolutely nothing is better than FM synthesis. The flexibility of being able to bend, merge, and deform waveforms is unparalleled, as it can produce any sound the programmer can dream of, in a warping, flexing, analog kind of way. The Yamaha YM2612 in the Genesis is the little brother to sound chips in almost every arcade machine from the 80s-- a match made in heaven for the VDP and CPU in terms of bringing the arcade experience home!

I like a lot of NES and Super NES games too, but for me from a subjective standpoint the Genesis library is the best of all time. Every single genre is amply accounted for with some of the best games in those genres ever made. And any time Sega went out to "clone" a genre leader, they wound up producing some of the most atmospheric, dark, moody video games material ever made.

Just to name one genre example, I will absolutely take the Genesis RPG library over any other platform. When I'm exploring a dungeon in "Sword of Vermilion", or watching the opening to "Phantasy Star II", or entering the maze in "Shining in the Darkness", everything from the way the artwork is drawn to the insane music gives me goosebumps, in a way that the "Final Fantasy" games or something simply don't.


In the Clear

I've finally got the insurance questions all answered, and are ready to hop right into my new job on October 13! It has felt like a full-time job trying to get all of this figured out, but I'm finally there! This will free up a lot of time for me over the next couple of weeks, thank the Lord! Now I can get back to scripture again.

The wife and I met with my new employer's health insurance broker, and it turns out that the health co-op is going to save us an astronomical amount of money. How it works is that instead of paying for health insurance for the employees all of the time, it's actually cheaper for them to cover catastrophic events if and when they happen! Then if one does occur, they open up a policy for that individual and use what's called and ICHRA to pay the deductible.

The only use case where it results in potentially net-negative for the company is when people have pre-existing conditions. So in my wife's case, we are going to get a policy just for her, to cover the prescriptions and procedures she needs to routinely have done. And then, my employer picks up part of the monthly premium for that policy-- while the kids and I will use the co-op for catastrophic scenarios instead.

On the car insurance side, we're shifting to State Farm-- they gave us a super low rate, and my wife's friend who worked there for many years, said that they are wonderful to deal with both from price and service standpoints. So I think we'll be in good shape!

Oof has my sleep been poor the past four-odd nights. I've been sleeping from maybe 21:30 to 1:30 or 2:00, then I'll wake up to use the bathroom and basically not fall back to sleep. Brutal! I think once I get past this week things will get a little better for me-- just a lot on my mind with the insurance situations and the like.

There is a super well known and highly respected priest in my area who is ninety years old, and still says the Mass as a substitute, among many other things. A bunch of us Knights are getting together this afternoon to help him with a huge list of things he needs done on his property: removing bushes, laying down some soil, edging his driveway, and so forth. Then we're having a big grill out.

Tomorrow I run the next Pastoral Council meeting. Wednesday, Space's sister has her next Confirmation class. I'm largely off the hook on Thursday, but then I run a Liturgy Committee meeting on Friday. Saturday we're having an all-day event at our church: grilling, a bonfire, hayrides, an outdoor movie, followed by a campout where people can bring their campers and sleep on the grounds overnight if they want. Should be a great time! Then on Sunday morning I'm sacristan for the 8:30 Mass.


NCYC

One of the things I'm most excited for is this event called NCYC-- the National Catholic Youth Conference. Space's sister is going, as am I as a chaperone. I've heard from everyone who has gone to these in the past that they are absolutely unforgettable from a catechetical and inspirational standpoint. We're going to load up a huge bus of kids and travel out there that way.

As part of this though, she is working to raise a fairly decent amount of money to fund her trip. If everyone who reads this site could take a peek at the things she's selling, it would be enormously appreciated! And if you can't support her by buying anything, that's ok-- say a prayer for the safety of our travels, or for the event to bring about conversions!

• Butter Braid pastry dough: You can buy this from her online via this link. I've heard that it's super good!


• Ole & Lena's pizza: View the catalog here. This one is limited to people who have a way to directly contact me via email, Discord, Signal, and so forth. This company has a ton of specialty pizzas-- I've had a couple of them in the past and they were excellent!


• Rada Cutlery: View the catalog here. Similar to the previous one, just reach out to me if you're interested!


• Tiny Saints: You can see the selection here, but don't buy through the website-- contact me if you're interested. I'm going to order a Saint Faustina one for myself.

Again, any support you can provide is greatly appreciated! And please pass these links to others if you know of someone else who might be interested.

I haven't been reading Saint Faustina's diary lately, so I decided to jump back into it last night. I came across this part:



This reminded me a lot of Paul's letter to the Romans, 4:1-8:



Both of them seem to say, faith and love are the most important things and the works are secondary-- or at least that works can not stand without faith. But then you have James, 2:14-24:



He places a huge priority on works, going so far as to say faith alone will not save you-- that works are required to demonstrate that faith. What's particularly fascinating is that both Paul and James quote the exact same passage regarding Abraham, but then use it to make slightly different points.

I need to reflect on these teachings some more. I certainly don't think they are contradictory-- but the arguments are nuanced.

Had a really nice conversation with my dad yesterday, where we worked through some of the stress and anxiety we're both feeling. In his case, he has thousands of dollars of hospital bills, is trying to get short-term disability renewed, has no clue if he'll ever be able to return to his old job, and so forth-- so much uncertainty. He's not used to being bombarded with so many things at once.

In my case I've been feeling really overwhelmed with intense feelings of nostalgia, trying to get my health and car insurance situations settled, worries about my new job, concerns about the next steps in the diaconate application process, a lot of stress and lack of confidence about a couple of church committee meetings I need to run next week, and so forth. It just feels like so much at once, and my brain has never dealt with "the unknown" very well.

But after talking to him, we worked out together that the solution is to replace the negative thinking with positive thinking: the overwhelming evidence suggests that everything will work out fine, so it's a matter of reconditioning our brains to view future events as opportunities rather than moments of dread or worry.

Other than all of that, I've just been working through the Bible some more. I finished Acts, and was disappointed that it ended-- I turned the page, and it was over! Now I'm parsing through Paul's letter to the Romans: it's so densely packed that I need to stop after every sentence to make sure I'm tracking with him-- because if you miss even one sentence, you start to lose his train of thought, since he systematically builds the ideas up. His preaching must have been astonishing to listen to. I'm taking a boat load of notes, and learning a lot.

I also started playing this on my Switch 2 via the GBA emulator yesterday, it's a lot of fun so far! I really like the art style, the music is good, the story is interesting, and so on. It was the first time the series ever came out in North America, so it's just straight-up called "Fire Emblem" here in the States. The main battle song reminds me of the overworld tune from "Phantasy Star III".

What a ridiculous post I made earlier today! I was tempted to clobber it out of the database, but decided to leave it as a reminder of what happens when I get all of the perspective wrong. Silly me!

I'm right in the middle of reading "Acts", and the disciples of the burgeoning early church traveled all over the place, from Antioch to Cypress to Athens-- Did they have 401ks? Did they have health insurance? What did the Israelites eat for forty years in the desert? The Lord provides, wherever we go! As long as we keep the will of our hearts aligned with the will of the Father, He will give us what we need!

What does Jesus say to Martha? When has worrying added even a day to your lifespan. Instead, we should turn to praise God continually for all of the blessings He has showered on us. Like Mary in the Magnificat! I think I need to just recite that when I'm experiencing a lack of gratitude.


Scriptural Questions

Both of the priests for my church cluster are so helpful when it comes to answering theological questions! In particular I often ask scriptural questions from our parochial vicar-- he's literally about the nicest guy you'll ever meet, and he's very patient with even my most elementary musings. Just in the past day I asked him a few questions, and he got back to me with super helpful answers. I figured I'd share them here, but re-written in my own words to help me process and understand the teachings.

The first question I asked him was, I was struggling to reconcile free will with prophesy. For example, did Judas have free will? When Jesus told him that Judas would betray him, could Judas have then "changed his mind" and "proved Jesus wrong", so-to-speak?

Father's reply was along the lines of this: God is omniscient, and so knows everything we will do. Nothing happens apart from God allowing it-- even our existence itself. But at the same time, it's helpful to think of the references from Jesus's life as being more prophetic than causal; God is the cause of everything, but not in a way which prevents the exercise of free will. Put another way, God knows everything we are going to do, and plans accordingly-- or rather, planned since the beginning of time.

The second question I asked was, when Jesus says he "did not come to bring peace, but a sword", how should I take that with regards to my own evangelization efforts? Is it better to meet people where they are and build relationships that way-- or is that too indirect?

His reply was to the effect of, there will be times when we will be in ultimatum situations, where we have to choose between unity, or truth. In those situations, we need to choose Jesus. But that doesn't mean we are in ultimatum situations all of the time! All of that said, if we find ourselves never in conflict, we are probably not being witnesses to our Faith in the way Jesus calls us to be. In the end, each situation requires discernment; sometimes it will result in division, other times in relationship building.

The third question I asked Father was, do we all have the power to perform miracles-- particularly of a healing nature? For example, could any of us command demons out of people, like the apostles and other disciples did?

His reply was to direct me towards 1 Corinthians, 12-- which I immediately went and read, and which instantly cleared up a lot of my confusion on this matter. He went on to say, we don't perform miracles-- God performs the miracles. The Holy Spirit bestows on us each unique gifts and charisms. Faith is required for miracles, but the Faith itself must also be a gift! This got me thinking, what is the best way to discern each of our own charisms? I need to ask him more on this subject.

I've been under a lot of stress recently, which is making it difficult to relax. Almost feels like a full-time job, just trying to figure all of this out! I think if I can write it all out, it will help me offer the discomfort up to the Lord:

• I start at my new job on October 13. It's job I think I'll love, which is great, and which is why I took it.


• The job's pay is highly variable depending on how much travel is involved. With no travel, it's a substantial pay cut from what I make now. With thirty percent travel, which is the likely estimate for this role which they gave me, it's a significant pay raise from what I make currently. We're talking a swing of over $60k per year from zero travel, to thirty percent travel.


• Common sense tells me that there will be a period of time, perhaps even many months, where I won't be traveling at all, as I get onboarded. This is speculation on my part, but it stands to reason.


• My wife also lost her job very recently. She is done at the end of the month. That's between $500 and $1500 worth of lost income per month.


• The previous two bullets mean I will probably have a period of time where I will need to pay the bills on a fraction of the income I'm used to.


• The good news is that I get paid full-time severance from my old employer, through the end of June 2026. If the travel for my new job can ramp up before that ends, I should be fine. But if it doesn't, I could be in real trouble cash flow-wise.


• Compounding the uncertainty is that my new employer does not offer a conventional health insurance plan. Actually, what they offer is much better for most people: it's a paid-for-by-the-company "pay as you go" sort of deal, for preventative care and for large unexpected expenses. For most of their employees, this saves them an unfathomable amount of money, not having to pay for health insurance.


• The problem is, my wife has lots of health issues, and depends on these thousands of dollars per month-- if paid out-of-pocket-- infusions of a particular drug. This means we will need to buy our own health insurance. I should get some kind of estimate for what this will cost next week; I'm working with a local company to help me figure it out. It could be $2000 per month, or more, of which my employer will pay $250 per month.


• Simultaneously, I was hit with a $4400 car insurance bill, for six months. My insurance agent accidentally added my daughter to the policy as a licensed driver, even though she presently only has her permit. The bill goes from $4400 down to $2700, with her removed. $2700 is still a "family bankrupting" level of expense, just to insure motor vehicles for six months.


• I kicked off conversations with a broker yesterday, who is going to price shop car insurance and home owner's insurance bundles for me. I should also find out about that next week. The good news is that I've run my information through a few different car insurance aggregation sites, such as "The Zebra", and got estimates as low as $1271 for six months. So I'm hoping this broker can come through for me.


• But if they can't, there is an alarming aspect: are my kids going to be able to drive at all? Imagine once I try to add both of my kids to the car insurance in a few years. What's that going to cost-- $15,000 per year? It'll be so expensive, it's probably cheaper for them to take a cab to and from work every day, versus having driver's licenses. Or to rent a car or something.


• In conclusion, there is a lot of uncertainty regarding my short-term financial situation. I'm not used to having to stress about money-- welcome to the club, I guess.


• From here you start to get into the non-financial concerns: will I get accepted to the diaconate program? If so, will my travel schedule permit me to study enough? Will I still have enough time to spend with my family?

Here's to hoping I can relax a little this afternoon and tonight.

Horrible, unthinkable violence being committed in the country right now: first we had Catholic school children shot dead literally through stained glass windows while celebrating the Holy Mass; then we had a beautiful young Ukrainian refugee brutally and senselessly murdered from behind in a subway car; and now Charlie Kirk has been assassinated.

That's a lot to process, all in a very short time.

Please pray for Charlie's soul and that the perpetrator can be brought to justice. Please pray for the families of the victims. And pray that these events don't lead to a wider conflagration within the country. Also pray for the conversions of the souls who would perpetrate, excuse, or condone the aforementioned acts of violence, that they make walk in the peace of Christ.

Finally feeling better! Was able to unpause the "rings" on my phone for the first time in five days-- by far the longest period I've gone in two years without being able to exercise.

My chiropractors are super excited that I'm hardcore into studying scripture-- I was in today and one of them asked me how the studying was going. I've finished the Gospels-- took a ton of notes-- and have moved on to Acts, which I'm really enjoying so far. In just a little bit dinner will be done, wife's dad is making ham, with brussels sprouts from the garden. Looking forward to that.

Hoping Space's sister can get caught up to us in "Twin Peaks" so the three of us can watch the third episode. I just need to get her through the first two-- which is a bit of a struggle with her work schedule, she's been putting in a ton of hours at Culver's, and loving it I might add. And that first pilot episode is a doozie, it's like a full-length movie.

They are looking for an altar server for a wedding this time, not this Saturday but the one after. I'm going to pray about it tonight-- Lord, is this more deacon prep? But on the flip side, I'd imagine for the big day, wouldn't someone want a kid to be the server, and not a grown adult? I'm sort of waiting to see if anyone else steps up, just for that reason.

Jesus had many incredible parables, but one of my favorites is this one-- this particular account of it is from Matthew 21:33-44:



Of course, this gave the Pharisees and the scribes major pause-- followed by anger: "Wait a minute... he's talking about us, isn't he..." But it's a cautionary tale to not just them, but all of us! If we are not going to be good stewards of God's graces, then He will find someone who will be.

I noticed that very early in Acts when I was reading it yesterday, Peter reminded everyone who was listening that Jesus is the rejected stone, which became the cornerstone.

It's been a few days since writing, and there is a good reason: Space, myself, and Space's mom were all basically stuck in bed with illness! The three of us felt like we could barely stand up on Wednesday and Thursday. It was only yesterday that we started to feel better. This morning I was recovered enough to help out at the First Saturday Mass and Adoration, although in that recovery I still felt felt pretty weak and zoned out.

I did talk to Father today and he has been in touch with the diaconate office, sounds like multiple times all told-- so things are moving forward on that front!

I really enjoyed this article, about the differences between proselytizing and evangelizing. The first point strikes a huge chord with me: I've been working so hard on this, just meeting everyone where they are, trying to understand each person as an individual beloved child of God, and establishing a relationship with them on that ground. I have a relative who used to tell everyone they were going to hell-- I'm doubtful he's converted many by doing that, among other issues with that attitude.

The article ends with a story about a man formerly with an addiction-- it's well worth reading, and drives home the point that I've experience in my own heart, and seen with my own eyes in regards to others: the Lord has each of us on our own path, and no human can see what those paths will be.

I built out a little search page, which you can reference from the menu above. I think it turned out pretty sweet!

I don't understand why PHP garners so much criticism. Truly bizarre. It's a Free Software language, which runs on every platform under the sun; it has a very simple syntax, can be learned in minutes, yet is full-on object oriented as well if you want to go that route; it has a thriving community with great documentation, and with tons of posts on places like Stack Overflow; it's fast, as evidenced by the myriad huge websites running on WordPress; and best of all, it doesn't needlessly change all the time like vendor-controlled languages-- the same PHP code I wrote in 2003 still runs today.

In the case of this site, I have a nice data access class, which has all of the methods to do CRUD operations against the backend. With two lines of code I can load in my site configuration plus instantiate that class-- and from there, it's just a matter of building a little bit of logic into the page PHP files to get the behavior I want. Finally, I just map the relevant data to the corresponding Smarty template for that page, then simply wire up the template. It's all fast, simple, secure, and has a great separation of concerns.


To Lapsed Catholics

I think a lot of lapsed Catholics stay away due to shame; they have this feeling that they've dug themselves into this huge pit with their sins-- and the ideas of trying to dig out, or to ask for the Lord's mercy, or to surmount thoughts of "I can only return if I'm going to be perfect, and I'm not ready to change my life that way", are perceived as such huge hurdles-- subconsciously or otherwise-- that people wind up severing their connection with the Church altogether, without even attempting to run the race.

But to those people I say, God's mercy is literally infinite! There is no hole too deep, God can drop down as big of a ladder as you need-- all you need to do is grab the rungs and start climbing.

What does that climb look like? First, write down whatever it is that you feel is preventing you from having that relationship with the Lord. Second, take that list of sins, go to Confession, and talk to the priest about your list, and what's weighing on your mind-- ask him for guidance and advice; you can kneel behind the screen, the priest won't even know who you are. Remember, priests have heard everything already, so you won't shock them. Third, go to the Holy Mass afterwards, and receive the Eucharist. You can sit way in the back if that makes you more comfortable. Give your hardened heart a chance to soften. Remember that God loves you more than you can literally even imagine.

After that, try your best not to sin-- try to root out and stop whatever caused you to feel the shame in the first place. But if-- or when, let's be honest, it's difficult to reverse course on what may even be a life-long habit or lifestyle or issue-- you slip up, remember that we are all sinners: God knows we're not perfect-- if we were perfect, we'd be Him! Every single person walking on the face of this Earth has their own struggles and sins that they deal with, daily.

Just because you've sinned or had a slip-up doesn't mean you can't have that personal relationship with Jesus, or be part of the Church-- in fact, it's just the opposite! When we sin is when we need God the most! God is that father who wants nothing more than to wrap His giant arms around you and give you absolute love, security, and mercy-- all you need to do is ask Him! If you sin, go to Confession and receive the Eucharist at Holy Mass again. Over time, you'll find yourself feeling better and better, in the fullness of God's light.

How do I know this? Because I walked this path! It wasn't easy, and was actually a little scary at first-- but as soon as the priest said "I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit", I cried because it felt like a thousand pounds had been lifted off of my shoulders. This is a personal testimony, and I hope it's helpful to others.

If I do get accepted into the diaconate formation program-- and get through said program (neither of which might happen, only God knows)-- some day I'll be tasked with preaching.

Deacons-in-formation spend years studying scripture at a master's degree level, and take homiletics classes-- none of which I've done. But nonetheless, I thought it would be a fun exercise to take this upcoming Sunday's readings and try my hand at writing a homily. I don't think I'll be doing one of these every week by any stretch-- but maybe occasionally, when scripture strikes me just a certain way.

I timed myself practicing the below, and it took ten and a half minutes-- perfect! Imagine it being delivered in a conversational style, which I think is how I would preach (to help build connection with the congregation). I also tried to bake in some humor.

Disclaimer: I am not an ordained minister! Every single thing I wrote down below could be theologically incorrect! I'm just a fledgling when it comes to understanding these matters, with zero formal education-- I only wrote the below to help me reflect on the meaning of what I was reading. Also, all real life names have been swapped out for their online pseudonyms. Obviously I would use real names when delivering the homily, haha.


Planning

A very strange thing happened in the Sniper household recently: we forgot to pick our daughter, Mooniidreams, up from work at Culver's. She was sitting out in the parking lot: "Where the heck are they? Oh well", as she happily munched away on some french fries. She's a good sport, and doesn't make too much of a fuss about things. Eventually she did pick up the phone and call, and got driven home. All's well that ends well, as they say.

But why do I describe this event as being strange? Well, organization and the ability to plan are something which come naturally to my wife, Angel. She's got plans for the plans, and plans for those plans; she has contingencies for the contingencies for the contingencies. I remember one time when our kids had chiropractor appointments, county fair judging, and friends coming up from the Twin Cities, all in one day!

Angel sat our whole family around the table, my in-laws included: "Ok you... you will take the Subaru Forester and pick the kids up at approximately 1:57 pm... you, you will drive to the fair in the Toyota and arrive by 2:23 to liaison with the kids by 2:36 pm..." And on and on she went. At the end of it, my mother-in-law sheepishly asked, "Um, you'll be going over this with us again, right?"

I always imagine the inside of Angel's brain as being one of those conspiracy boards, with the clipped out newspaper articles from 1962 connected via thumb tacks and strands of yarn, highlighters and markers strewn all over the place. And thank God that Angel is the way she is: she's who keeps us moving, on time, food on the table, laundry folded, kids' school work done, on to the next appointment... her charism and talents are a huge blessing to our family.

But in this one instance with my daughter, Angel did not have a plan! Well, either that or I wasn't listening when she told me. But either way, despite our best intentions, picking up Mooniidreams at work slipped through the cracks.

Today's Gospel reading talks about plans. We hear that when Jesus was traveling with a great crowd, he turned around to talk to the throngs about discipleship, and what it means to follow him. One of the things he tells the crowd is this-- this is from Luke, chapter 14:



Now, I know we have a ton of small business owners in our congregation, and people who build with their hands. So you know better than anyone, of course you wouldn't construct building without blueprints! Of course you wouldn't put together a business plan, without calculating the costs first! This is common sense. So what Jesus says here is relatable so far. Let's look at what he says next-- continuing in Luke 14:



This is the same kind of theme: one wouldn't be a very good military leader who didn't plan for the battle ahead of time!

Ok, great, Jesus wants us to plan. Angel, you're in luck! But plan for what exactly? Is he actually just talking about buildings? Well, the answer is right there in Luke 14, verse 27: "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." Jesus is talking about us following him! He's talking about discipleship.

Now, we know that Jesus wants us to be disciples. Remember when Simon Peter and Andrew were casting their net into the Sea of Galilee, and Jesus says to them "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men"? That's from Matthew, chapter 4. Or how about in John, chapter 15, when Jesus says "This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."

In fact, Jesus feels so strongly about us being his disciples, that he wants us to make disciples out of others! This is from Matthew 28, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." All nations! He wants us to go and make disciples of everybody! That's astonishing, isn't it?

But it goes even further than that if you can believe it.

The reason Jesus wants us to follow him, is because it is only through him that we can be saved! John, chapter 10: "I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture." Jesus doesn't say, "There's the gate over there, go walk through it"-- no, he says "I am the gate."

Or how about this, from John, chapter 3? "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Or how about this, it goes on and on, from Acts chapter 4: "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved."

Jesus wants us to be disciples. Got it. And Jesus reminds us that only by being his disciple, can we achieve salvation-- ok, got that too! Salvation can only happen through discipleship to Jesus. Crystal clear.

So let's circle back to this bit about planning again. Remember when he talked about building the tower, and how the builder should have a plan? Normally we associate plans with: we can back out of them if we want.

Let's say you put together a business plan, like selling ice cream cones in Antarctica. Or selling wool sweaters to the Egyptians. Or manufacturing cars with square wheels. And you start running your brilliant business plan past others, and they tell you "that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard." You can choose not to do it! We associate plans with making decisions-- yes, or no. Isn't that usually what planning is? To help us decide whether to do something or not?

But in the case of Jesus, we're talking about discipleship and the salvation of our souls! I mean, can you really back out from that plan? Would you want to? Isn't Jesus kind of pulling a funny one on us, telling us on the one hand that we can only go to heaven if we are his disciple, but on the other hand that we should plan? What's the sense in planning if we don't really have a choice? If the stakes are so high? It feels like a kind of contradiction!

But let's frame it a different way: Jesus isn't telling us to plan in the context that we normally think of it: that we have some kind of decision to be made. But rather, that he's telling us to steel ourselves! To brace ourselves! To acknowledge openly to ourselves that following Jesus isn't easy! That we have a building to make darn it-- and that constructing it is going to be hard work!

Do you think Saint Stephen found it easy to be a follower of Jesus when he was stoned to death? Or St. Lawrence as he was being grilled alive? For most of us it won't be as dramatic as martyrdom of course, it could come in the form of political or social oppression-- think of the parents of the blind man from John chapter 9, who were intimidated by the authorities and wouldn't publically proclaim that Jesus had healed their son.

It could also come in the cost of relinquishing material posessions-- this is from Matthew, chapter 19: "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." Or what about the cost of aligning our moral values, and giving up our sinful ways? It's not easy to give up our vices and temptations!

So in all of this talk about needing to be disciples of Jesus to achieve salvation, and that being a disciple of Jesus is immensely challenging work, what's the good news?

The good news is that we don't need to have Angel's conspiracy board brain to plan for how to follow Jesus! And it's ok if we're not always perfect, sort of like how Angel and I got our wires crossed about who was picking up Mooniidreams at Culver's that one night.

We as Catholics have powerful tools at our disposal!

We have Sacred Scripture-- the literal Word of God, telling us how to act, how to think, how to align ourselves to the Lord's heart and will. We have Sacred Tradition; our rich history of Saints and their writings, Popes and their encyclicals, theologians like St. Thomas Aquinas, some of the greatest minds to ever exist on this Earth; we have communion with one another-- one big congregration and loving family. And for when we do stray, we have the powerful sacrament of Reconciliation, where we can pull and draw from the infinite grace and mercy of our Lord and God.

So take heart! We hear in first Corinthians, "No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it."

Discipleship may be difficult, but our God is one of infinite love and mercy-- and like children lost in the woods, he wants nothing more than to draw us into his warm embrace. And he's given us the tools and means for that to happen. All we have to do is accept his gift.

I love mornings! The days just seem so full of potential. I wake up, make my bed, shower, grab my coffee, and sit down at the laptop to do some reading and writing. Glorious! I always say to God, "Thank you Lord for another day."

I've been absolutely hooked on the Bible lately. I read John, John's letters, then started on Luke-- which in turn got me digressed towards Jonah, which I read yesterday, and Zechariah which I've just started. I'm taking tons of notes as I read all of this. Basically anytime Jesus mentions someone or a prophesy, I'm finding myself compelled to go back and read that source material.

In other news, I took Space's sister out driving yesterday in the 2014 WRX ("her car", essentially)-- and she nailed it! We started at the church parking lot, and after many go-arounds she was able to consistently and very easily get the car moving in first. It all culminated in her driving us, in traffic, on slow roads and highways, all the way from the church to Dollar General, and back again. She doesn't quite remember where all the gears are yet, but that will come quickly as I continue to coach her.

I was so confident in her I asked, "Do you want to drive yourself to work?" She wasn't quite up to that yet-- but that day is rapidly approaching, given how quickly her skill is growing. We did have the darned check engine light come on again in that vehicle-- I scanned plus cleared the code when I got home:



I thought all of the O2 sensor replacements had resolved these issues, but apparently not!

In football news, I watched the Cremonese-Sassuolo game yesterday, and holy cow it was the "Romano Floriani Mussolini" show in the final fifteen-odd minutes-- I couldn't believe it! He came on around the 80th minute, and his first action was outmuscling a defender for a long ball, and playing an assist for a goal. The goal was-- in my view incorrectly-- chopped off, VAR having decided that Floriani had fouled the defender.

Minutes later, Cremonese counterattacked after a Sassuolo corner, and Floriani played this magnificent through-ball, only for the attacker to not be able to beat the goal keeper. Minutes after that, he snuck in at the back post, could have scored on a header, chased down the loose ball, was hacked down by a defender, and won his team the game-winning penalty. And to think we let this kid go, albeit just on loan, starting freaking Lazzari and Marusic instead. Plus, Mussolini would have helped with the squad quotas as well, as he is a Primavera product.

Today I'm going to drop Space's sister off at work, pick up Chinese from my favorite place, then eat that while I watch Bologna-Como. I want to see if Como really are that good, or if Lazio simply suck that badly. Oh, and on a Minnesota United front I saw that they sold Tani Oluwaseyi to Villareal for some huge sum of money. I wish Lotito would learn to do this-- it's ok and even good to churn over players, earning capital gains which can be reinvested in the team. Here is a list of all of United's transfer activity this window.

In any event, off to go exercise!

Trying to figure out which tires to buy for the GR86: the Continental ExtremeContact Sport 02, or the Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 6. The Continentals have been out for a few years and have a class-leading reputation. The Goodyears are a new product for the US, which give the Continentals a real run for their money. It's a touch choice. The Goodyears are cheaper, but the Continentals are more time-tested. Tirerack's crew loved them both. Hmmm...


Great Advice

Feeling much better a couple of days removed from my previous post! The Pastoral Council meeting went great, and I've been better able to frame the thing I was alluding to before. A really close friend of mine, Jim, sent me this, bold emphasis is mine:



I hope the above can help others too, because it really nails it on the head: Satan tries to steer us away from the Lord each according to our own vulnerabilities. For people like me and some of you, my readers, who tend to overthink things, he's going to try to veer us off course by trapping us in our own minds, filled with doubts and negative feelings.


Church Friends

One of my best friends at church was the pitcher for our local town for many, many years. He was quite prolific, he sent me some local newspaper articles from back then, where he was on these huge winning streaks and such. Anyway, here he was during those days, circa 1975:






I also spent a few hours yesterday helping another friend's parents with their new PC, and also just visiting to keep them company. They are right around eighty five years old, and I love to hear all of the old stories from them.

She was quite the painter for many decades, and she showed me around the house so I could see many of the works she'd created over the years. They have roots in Texas, and many of her works featured strong Mexican and even Native American influence. My favorite among those was this one. I love how she captured the emotions on the faces of the dancers. Click on any of these for larger versions:




She also did some landscapes, this one was my favorite from that set. I asked her how in the heck she did the water-- it takes some real skill to get that technique right:




But my all-time favorite from all of her paintings was this one. It has such a cool ambience, and just look at the emotions and expressions on all of the faces-- I feel like I'm there!




Finally, here was their wedding photo, from 1960-- so cool.

Was barely able to drag myself out of bed this morning. I'm still struggling with shame and embarrassment from the mistake I alluded to here; I run my first Pastoral Council meeting tonight, and I'm pretty nervous for that; and I have a zillion other loose ends bouncing around in my mind. Sometimes I do get in modes like this, where I get "stuck in my head" and have a difficult time working out of it.


Permit

On a happier note, Space's older sister hit another major milestone yesterday: she got her driver's permit! She passed the written exam on her first try. As soon as we got home, we pulled the WRX out of the mothballs, and started working on how to drive a manual transmission. We set up a little driving course around the property, she did really well for her first time, considering she'd never accelerated a car, used a brake pedal, or a steering wheel in a real car-- not to mention the clutch. We'll need a few more of those practice sessions before she'll be ready to go on the actual roads-- but I'm confident she'll make quick progress.


John

I read through John's Gospel over the weekend, along with his letters. Then I started on the book "The Gospel and Letters of John", by R. Alan Culpepper. I think my favorite part of John may have been right near the beginning-- chapter 4, verses 31-39:



The first reason this passage grabbed me is because of the human element; as man, Jesus needs to eat as well, and then there is the confusion of the disciples-- "did someone give him food when we weren't looking?" It really brings the story to life.

But then there is that metaphor, spoken in Jesus's usual way of using parables and the like to not just teach people, but teach them in a way which challenges them to reflect and discern the true meaning of what he says. I interpreted "the fields are ripe for harvesting" and the notion that the reaper is already "gathering fruit for eternal life" to mean evangelization-- that the fruit is already out there, the disciples just need to go and pick it.

I thumbed ahead in the aforementioned R. Alan Culpepper book, and it has this to say:



Como-Lazio

I'm seriously worried about Lazio this season. Yes Como played very well, but holy buckets-- this is the last technical Lazio I've seen in probably the last twenty years. It almost reminds me of the team from 2004-2005, the first season I watched. I'm struggling to convince myself that we're better than teams like Udinese or Genoa-- either Como is just that good, or we might be struggling down in the bottom quarter of the table. I think Sarri will keep our defense solid, but our midfield has zero creativity, and our attackers are some of the worst in the division, I fear.

I'd like to start this post with a couple of prayer requests. The first one is very insignificant in the greater scheme of things, but nonetheless I made a very stupid, idiotic, yet honest mistake yesterday, and I'm quite embarrassed and frustrated by it. I don't want to go into details about it, but all the same, if you all could say a quick prayer for me to forgive myself in the aftermath, and to feel God's mercy on me, it would be very much appreciated.

This second prayer request is much more serious-- in fact I just prayed a rosary for it, and if any of you have time to do the same, that would be amazing: the father of one of my very best friends at church is having an emergency cancer-related surgery today. I know what it's like to have a father who is in a life-threatening medical situation, and it is not fun. Please pray for my friend and her parents, and for her father's healing and full recovery.

One last Faith-related note for now: for those wondering, I submitted all of the final paperwork for my diaconate application first thing this morning! I don't know if I'll get accepted or even move on to the next phase-- but it's all in the Lord's hands, He will put me where He wants me, whatever form that takes.


A Number Ten

This news is beyond insignificant compared to the second prayer request above, but still I know some of you do enjoy football, so I may as well add this commentary to lighten things a bit. As unbelievably exciting and dominant as Joaquín Pereyra has been this season for Minnesota United, it's pretty obvious that he's a deep-lying playmaker, not someone who can play on or near the forward line. Really, he's a mezzala-- just a very technically gifted one who can play key passes.

When the team's Catenaccio "Plan A" is working, a Lod-Pereyra-Trapp-Hlongwane work-a-day midfield is perfect. But with more and more opponents setting up a sort of "mid-block" and deeper line to prevent counter-attacking-- or when United is straight-up chasing a goal-- it becomes immediately obvious that they need some kind of advanced, creative player to link the attack and play final balls.

They just went out and bought exactly that player: Dominik Fitz. 26 years old, valued at 3.5 million EUR, and having played a major role in a European top flight since a teenager, he seems like exactly the kind of profile to complement Pereyra. In fact, Fitz might be able to transform United from a playoff team to a championship-caliber team, if he can settle in. And remember, this from a side which is bottom five within MLS, in transfer fees and payroll.


Commodore Revival

Outside of using one in kindergarten and first grade way back in the mid-80s, I don't have any particular nostalgia for Commodore or the C64. But I still ordered one of these as soon as they went live, and it was really fun watching the meeting room footage as he signed all of the documents. For those who don't have time for the video, Tom's Hardware has a nice write-up here.


Battle for Dream Island

My kids got me watching an old-yet-still-ongoing web series called "Battle for Dream Island". You can watch the first season, from 2010, right here on YouTube. Even for someone in his 40s like me, if you like absurdist and non-sequitur humor, the show is well worth a watch, with extremely memorable characters and plenty of high grade writing in several of the episodes in particular.

The show has become so popular that the creators have spun off a series of official plushies. Spacemario just bought the "Fanny" one, like all of the character designs it's quite hilarious:

Welcome to Universal Zeal, the brand new website co-created by its authors, Sniper and his son Spacemario! Feel free to visit the about page to learn more about us.

The name has a sort of double meaning: we plan to talk a lot about God on this site; God is universal, and for Him we have great zeal. Meanwhile, Spacemario in particular also has a great zeal for God's creation, especially outer space-- the universe. Hence, Universal Zeal!

Why not simply continue the old site? The simple answer is that I've outgrown it.

I've been "blogging" since the mid-90s, before that term had even been popularized-- and at the passing of each phase of my life I've always retired one site and started a new one. The old site lasted a long time-- from January of 2007 to today; that's more than eighteen years! But since I've undergone this deep spiritual renewal and re-orientation of myself in service to others, the content there has been becoming less and less relevant, to the point where I hardly recognize my old self.

Time to start fresh!

We'll be adding a ton of content to this site over time-- right now it's pretty bare bones. My next step will be implementing a search page, which will let people search both by keyword, and also filter by tag. We'd also like to make a "links", and / or "projects" section(s)-- we'll see where things lead. But for now it's time to relax a bit and be happy that the "bones" of the site are all up and running!