The Joys of Surfing the Blogosphere

has to include, for me at least, those pages that give summaries of multiple other pages. The first for me was Video meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor. I always look forward to scanning his summaries and highlights of so many other blogs. There's another that I look forward to these days: Required Reading from <Campaign Standard. It's a Readers Digest way of surfing, I guess. Here's the posting that inspired this thoughtlet:

          H e can be...: "

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He can be infuriating, at times, but Andrew Sullivan's blog without Andrew Sullivan reminds me of something David Letterman once said about decaf coffee: 'It's like non-alcoholic Scotch. What is the point?' - Dylan of 'More Last than First'

why I envy Augustine...He is so faithful to so many that he met, e.g. Cicero. He never forgets what each one did for him, even if it wasn't enough. With me, a pallor falls on those that I once loved - as if they're all used up. - FPK of 'Reconnaissance of the Western Tradition'

One of the old signs of saintliness was always a genuine love for animals coupled with the ability to give them orders, to which even wild animals responded with love and respectful obedience. This reversal of the Fall and return to something like Eden is part of what we are called to do, as co-workers with the New Adam...We can’t separate ourselves from Creation, or pretend that we can treat ourselves like crap, ripping away our own human dignity and oppressing ourselves, and still be able to treat everything else with love and respect. Mystically, too, we are connected to the world. - Suburban Banshee of 'Aliens of this World' via Enbrethiliel

Dogs' lives are short, too short, but you know that going in. You know the pain is coming, you're going to lose a dog, and there's going to be great anguish, so you live fully in the moment with her, never fail to share her joy or delight in her innocence, because you can't support the illusion that a dog can be your lifelong companion. There's such beauty in the hard honesty of that, in accepting and giving love, while always aware it comes with an unbearable price. Maybe loving dogs is a way we do penance for all the other illusions we allow ourselves and for the mistakes we make because of those illusions. - from a Dean Koontz novel via 'Sancta Sanctis'

As it is the nature of a seed to grow into a fruitful plant, so it is the nature of a human to grow into a perfect child of God, and forcefully uprooting the weeds in our nature -- weeds, let us not forget, that we ourselves have nurtured -- may also uproot the good plants through which we are to be perfected. - Tom of Disputations

One of my favorite bloggers, Cecily, just got back from the Blogher conference in California. In giving her impressions of the conference she wrote about blogging and about the popular blog writer Dooce: 'I've read her blog for almost five years, and I've watched her become more private over that time, less willing to do what they called at BlogHer 'naked' blogging. Sure, she's been compensated for her blog, but she's lost a great deal too.I am a 'naked' blogger; when Heather said that she doesn't blog about 95% of her life, I thought, wow: I am the total opposite. I don't blog about more like 5%. I really do put it all out here.' This was interesting for me to read. I have just been thoroughly chastized (again ) in other parts of the blogosphere for speaking up when other bloggers 'blogged naked' and put some of their more controversial stuff out there. I've even read from some mommy bloggers that they consider their blogs to be their personal little spaces on the web, like pretty front porches. - Elena of 'My Domestic Church'

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to commentary on FOXNews about the [teenage] pregnancy pact…One expert in Gloucester truly connected some dots for me. She surmised that one of the big draws for these teenaged girls--young teenaged girls--was that maternity clothes had become so chic, so totally hip. Let me re-phrase that: high school freshmen and sophomores are eager to get pregnant because they know they'll look pretty darn cute in today's maternity fashions. - blogger at 'In the Heart of My Home'

all we need is hard work, fervent prayer, and rifles - Tagline of blogger at 'Zero Summer'

In 1987-88, Mary kept me Christian. Not Catholic, but Christian... I found myself drawn to the Basilica Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, where I saw such epithets as 'to Jesus through Mary' which puzzled me...I was wondering about Jesus and whether it all really happened. The one thing I couldn't get out of my head was the visit of Our Lady of Guadalupe. She appeared to Juan Diego to tell him: 'Am I not here, I who am your mother?'...The skeptic may dismiss a priori any miracles such as this one, but to one who is open and doesn't presume to turn away from anything that claims a reason beyond what can be observed in a laboratory - to one who doesn't set a limit on what can happen, then, Our Lady of Guadalupe doesn't easily reduce to formulas of power and shamanism. To me, it's clear that Our Lady of Guadalupe did appear to Juan Diego...Jesus suffers a thousand competing reductions in the common mentality: Jesus the revolutionary, Jesus the hippie, and the various Jesuses of South Park, the Simpsons, and Family Guy. With all these counterfeits, abstractions, and reductions jumping around, it can be difficult to see Jesus as a person. Mary changed that for me. Mary is the sign of Jesus's humanity. - Frederick of 'Deep Furrows'

Joseph and John, as well, are bound to Mary in different ways. In her assent Mary was led by the angel immediately to the Lord, without the intervention of her husband's consent. Joseph, who is warned by the angel that he should not divorce Mary because she has conceived of the Holy Spirit, is bound directly to the human person, Mary, in order to become through this bond a servant of the incarnate Lord. John, however, is first claimed by the Lord for himself and only then brought together with Mary and given over to her. If Joseph attains to God and to holiness only through Mary, God draws John immediately into His friendship and binds him as the Lord's friend to the Mother of the Lord. - From 'The Handmaid of the Lord' via 'Deep Furrows'"

(Via Video meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor.)