ZG: so the part that bothers me is that people mistake uncertainty for subjectivity
ZG: just because we as a species don't know something for sure, that doesn't mean you as a person get to decide what is "right" based on your opinions or beliefs
ZG: it's ok to just not know
ZG: whereas, subjective things like art and beauty
ZG: we can have different versions of "truth" about those things
ZG: to me, it can be great, and to you it can suck
ZG: but [public policy] isn't that kind of a thing

personal correspondence w Zev Goldstein. Bracketed correction approved

What is Faith?

Substance of things hoped for evidence of things unseen.

10obj. In the soul there is a twofold movement, one from the soul and one to the soul. In the movement to the soul the principle is extrinsic; in that from the soul, it is intrinsic. Now, the same principle cannot be intrinsic and extrinsic. Therefore, the same principle of movement cannot be to the soul and from the soul. However, cognition takes place through a movement to the soul, but affection through a movement from the soul. Therefore, neither faith nor anything else can be the principle of affection and cognition. For this reason it is illogical to put in the definition of faith something pertaining to affection: “the substance of things hoped for,” and something pertaining to cognition: “evidence of things that appear not.”

10ans. The act of faith consists essentially in knowledge, and there we find its formal or specific perfection. This is clear from its object, as has been said. But, with reference to its end, faith is perfected in the affections, because it is by reason of charity that it can merit its end. The beginning of faith, too, is in the affections, in so far as the will determines the intellect to assent to matters of faith. But that act of the will is an act neither of charity nor of hope, but of the appetite seeking a promised good. From this it is clear that faith is not in two powers as in its subjects.

From http://dhspriory.org/thomas/english/QDdeVer14.htm

This is what happens, Fr. Giussani observes. “Through our astonishment at His mercy, He makes us desire to be like Him.” The Pope has invited us to live a Year of Mercy so that we will desire more and more to be like Christ. Fr. Giussani continues: “Even people who have no interest in the Church or in morality desire to be like Him! They begin really to forgive their enemies, those who do them harm; so we can understand how Job, before the enemies who had destroyed everything he had, could say, ‘The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ When we get up in the morning, feeling the forgiveness that renews our lives, we also feel like saying, ‘Lord, help me to be like You!’ For Jesus had already told His disciples, ‘Be merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful.’ [This is the theme that the Pope has chosen for this Holy Year of Mercy—“Be merciful as your Father is merciful.”] This seems to go against good sense, but only up to a certain point, because it is desire that defines the soul of the new man. We are not truly human if we do not wish to be merciful like our heavenly Father. The question is whether or not we really desire it.” It is not whether we make mistakes or not: it is whether we desire to be merciful like our heavenly Father. “So the miracle of mercy is the desire to change. And this implies acceptance, because otherwise it would not be desire for change, but pretension and presumption, and it would never become entreaty to an Other, it would not be trust in an Other. This desire defines the present, the instant of the man who is a sinner. The miracle is accepting oneself and entrusting oneself to an Other present so as to be changed, standing before Him and begging.”155

(Fun note: In Leisure the Basis of Culture, Pieper classifies pure science for its own sake as a liberal art. To clarify, for Pieper, anything you do for a "utilitarian" reason, even if it's applied science, is a thing that ceases to be a liberal art, at least entirely, and becomes a servile art--hence philosophy, theology, study of literature, pure science, pure mathematics, are all liberal arts in the sense of being "useless" and directed towards the subjects themselves. Whereas applied ethics, pastoral ministry, engineering or applied science or math are not.

“Yeah, we had some great conversations. But, after praying about it, I realized that she wasn’t right for me. She’s into Medjugorje, and you know man, the Church hasn’t approved that. Also, did you notice that thing with her left eyebrow in low light situations?”

from Area Catholic Man Goes to Party [Etc] writing | singleness comedy inherit closed closed 25-revision-v1 2017-06-15 05:22:19 27 revision

Ahhhh, sounds like they were simply not well prepared.  Don't knock on a Hurricane Party because some dumb people couldn't follow the first rule of having fun.  You need to be able to have fun tomorrow too! ... Just in general.  If you die having fun now, you can't have fun later.  How is that optimizing for fun?!?

I have not seen the video, but my family throws Hurricane Parties.  Commonly hosting friends with giving up rooms for displaced family.  Tons of prep and we were never in an evacuation zone.  It sounds like in the video they shouldn't have been where they were.)

Tim Bruckner, personal conversation

Here is the recipe for the soup

• 2 chicken breast
• 3 cans of Hominy golden (see picture of white is same just a gold color)
• 1 table spoon of red chili powder (new Mexico is not too hot)
• Half of small onion (chapped in small pieces
• 2 garlic cloves (chapped in very small pieces
• 1 small tomato (chapped in small pieces
• Tomato sauce for color about ½ measurement cup
• Knorr Chicken Bouillon1 cube chopped in small pieces

For toppings

• Limes
• Cabbage
• Red radishes

Boil the chicken in enough water with salt

Shared the chicken and save the water

In a big bowl sauté the onion, garlic and tomato, and the chicken bouillon cube for about 5 minutes,

Add the chicken and the water the hominy the tomato sauce the chili powder.

As soon it boils turn it off.

Chop toppings and add lime use at serving.

1. Write a story about having a long distance relationship in which the two never meet in person / Entirely through texting and phone calls / Which of course ends in disaster [from Electro]
2. three different heroes enter a labyrinth in turn to defeat a foul monster
3. man goes to sleep each night and awakens with a different situation each night of the week, the same exact situation each mon/tue/wed/etc.
4. two people hide from a mysterious creature in the woods [i’m sure it’s cliche, not that i really care]
5. a young boy about 11 wanders around a Church festival
6. someone discovers that history has been erased and rewritten several times and must decide whether to do it again
7. man comes home to his apartment after a long work-week, makes himself dinner, checks his voicemail
8. folks run an alchemy shop in modern-day Portland, specializing in fall-out-of-love potions
9. several college kids go on a snipe-hunt
10. a saint lives through martyrdom upon martyrdom after asking to live until the end of the world
11. woman and man on blind date discover they can re-write each other
12. a jogger in the woods is abducted by aliens. for ten years.
13. a high-school boy prays for Solmon’s wisdom
14. a man waits in an Adoration chapel to see if/when the next watch will come
15. customer service selling cyborg implants in the early 2100s
16. Jean le Maistre’s journal as he tries to avoid involving himself in the trial of Joan of Arc
17. a fisherman’s wife’s journal/letters as she observes her husband slowly turning into a mer-person
18. children help a ghost to resolve his spiritual issues
19. a family plot of land creeps westward 40 miles over 100 years.
20. a princess must spurn would-be suitors because they cannot respect her dreams [I have no idea what the actual hook of this is. I didn’t give myself any remote clue to knowing]
21. speculative future where Planned Parenthood does embryonic adoptions and Right to Life advocates for euthanasia
22. man goes to sleep each night and awakens with a different situation each night of the week, the same exact situation each mon/tue/wed/etc.