Thoughts on The Wizard of Oz

As I was walking back to my apartment today, thinking about my step-by-step journey back to physical fitness (I won't bother with the numbers from my physical, but lets just leave it at they are not nearly where I want them to be) when I began thinking about the Wizard of Oz story. This may take more twists and turns than the Yellow Brick Road, so bear with me. We are all on a Yellow Brick Road of self-discovery in life. We all have our own needs and wants, or at least those we perceive. Along the way, we meet people with their own needs and wants, just like Dorothy met the Scarecrow, before both of them met the Tin Man before all three of THEM met the Cowardly Lion. How similar is that to life? A winding road we follow on our journey, meeting people along the way and helping them achieve their goals as they help us achieve ours, in the meantime, all of us discovering things about ourselves by helping others discover things about themselves, or helping each other realize that maybe what we wanted we had all along and didn't even know it. Look at the Emerald City and especially the All-Powerful Oz himself. The reality was that our dream destination was no more than a product of what we had heard,the wishful thinking others had passed down to them, enhanced by our own imagination. We are disappointed, as first glance, that the reality does not meet our expectations, but eventually are satisfied with what we have, because indeed we have discovered we have it...

Faith is not a commodity

A mandate for health insurance companies to provide contraceptives to employees of religious organizations is entirely uncalled for, and yet more unnecessary government interference in faith issues. By paying premiums to an insurance company that offers contraceptive services, those organizations are implicitly endorsing those services, and, in the process, betraying their faith.
And since when is contraception preventive care? What does it prevent?? A woman from taking responsibility for a choice she has made?
The compromise provides the opportunity for a woman to receive an elective product for free. Who is going to pay for these "free" products? Not the woman, apparently, and certainly not the insurance company. That is just bad business. That leaves the American taxpayers, some of whom have moral objections of their own to having their money pay for such services.
An administration official was quoted in the Washington Post of saying of the U.S. Councils of Bishops "“We never anticipated that this announcement would win the endorsement of an organization that opposed health reform from the very beginning. But we believe it’s the right way to fully address concerns about religious liberty and ensure women get the coverage they need.”
The president has stated that woman should not have to choose between contraception and paying the rent. Why? Paying the rent is a necessary responsibility contraception is an artificial way of not having to be responsible for the consequences of an action.
At any rate, it's none of the government's business, and it's definitely not an issue to pick a fight over just because it is a presidential election year.

One of a kinds

I want to wish everybody a happy new year, even though the first week of it has been filled with some sad news for me. I lost two friends New Year's Day, one whom I'd known about a year throught the Knights of Columbus at my church and the other that I had known of since 1994 and worked with for three years at the beginning of this decade (century..whatever). These two men, though about the same age, couldn't have had more different lifestyles and couldn't have left us in more different ways, but both were unique, and I will miss them both greatly.
Brother Bob Eyles was one of the first people to call me when i joined the Knights of Columbus in the fall of 2005, and was the definition of classy kindly gentleman. He was my partner on the Knights' Jordan team assisting at baptisms at the church and was a joy to know. I will never forget the kindly way he would call me to remind me about Knights meetings. The world has lost one of its good ones, and I will surely miss him, though i didn't have the privilege of knowing him nearly as long as I would have liked.
Michael Schrader was an eccentric character, but he was also without a doubt the best practitioner of the English language I have ever met. Anybody who wanted to know just how little they (sorry Michael, he or she..) knew about the English language could simply give him a page he or she had proofread and watch it come back in a sea of red ink with corrections he had made. I know because I tried that little experiment once and was duly humbled at the results.
Michael had retired to Florida a couple years ago from his job at the trade magazine in New York, but was murdered in his Florida condo New Year's Day, apparently by a young man he had taken in who kept asking him for money. Unfortunately the scenario was a familiar one to all of us who worked with Michael and one that was repeated despite our warnings to be careful.
Working with him was a privilege and a lesson in respecting the English language and all its nuances. I can certainly say I never have met anyone like him when it came to a passion for proper usage and grammer. The world has lost a great grammarian, but I'm sure there will be fewer split infinitives among us who were lucky enough to work with him.
Michael could construct a sentence better than anyone I know, but unwittingly strung a couple together one day that became my favorite memory of him: A beautiful young woman at our office had been laid off and came by to say goodbye to all of us. In the process of consoling her, Michael said "You're an attractive young woman. You'd do well at Penthouse magazine." At the woman's "excuse me??" response, Michael quickly hastened to add "in the editorial department..in editorial"
God Bless you, Michael and Bob, and Happy New Year, everybody.