Thirsty

In being accepting of your friends' choices, despite your own thoughts on the worth of those choices, are you stringing your friends along? Are you holding them back from what they could become? Where do you draw the line on what to say?

Assuming or clueless?

God does not condemn us to Hell; God wishes all humans to be saved. He will love us to all eternity, but there will exist the possibility that we do not accept that love and do not respond to it. And the refusal to accept love, the refusal to respond to it, that precisely is the meaning of Hell. Hell is not a place where God puts us, it's a place where we put ourselves. The doors of Hell, insofar as they have locks, have locks on the inside. - Kallistos Ware

We bridled at that last bit, drew ourselves up to our full heights, insisted defensively on our competence, on the respect we were due because of all our hard work. We looked for others whose lives were similarly overstuffed; we found them. "This is just the way it is," we said to one another on the train, in the restaurant. "This is modern life. Maybe some people have time to measure things out by teaspoonfuls." Our voices dripped contempt for those people who had such time. We felt oddly defensive, though no one had accused us of anything. But not me. Not anyone who has a life. I have a life. I work hard. I play hard.

Well, starting last week, I am now the "Network Czar" at my employer. Or something to that effect, it'll probably go down as "Lead Network Administrator" or "Senior Network Administrator" on my resume. I was about 90% surprised at the offer, I had heard rumours, but never took them seriously or counted on them. This was after 17 months as Systems Administrator for a particular subset of my employers operations. The Good: - great resume material. very great. - a means to further accelerate my debt elimination, thereby achieving freedom from financial chains - more professional and career challenges than ever before. more systems, more interaction with more people. more responsibility. more technologies. more logistics. The Bad: - now directly responsible for Micro$oft servers. i must now play more nicely than ever before. - yanked out of the cozy BCK community, and into the sea of chaos. - i replaced a long-time employee. e

This week's bulletin at my parish included a good mnemonic exercise for praying (well, more of the petition aspect of praying, but you can insert "gratitude" into each item as well, to complete it). It's called the Five Finger Prayer : Your thumb is nearest to you. So begin your prayer by praying for those closest to you. Pray for your family and your friends. The next finger is the pointing finger. Pray for those who teach, instruct, and heal. This includes priests, deacons, religious Sisters, teachers, doctors, nurses, judges, attorneys and all counselors. They need support and wisdom in pointing others in the right direction. Keep them in your prayers. The next finger is the tallest finger. It reminds us of our leaders. Pray for our religious leaders—our Pope, our Bishops and Pastors. Also pray for our President, all government leaders and all leaders in business and industry. These people shape our church and our nation and they guide public opinion