Seven Quick Takes, Chest cold edition

I’m not sure if I can come up with 7 takes this week, but I’ll give it a try. I like to get at least a post a week up on the blog, and 7 Quick Takes does that, anyhow.

I’ve had a chest cold for the last while, and it’s really just sucking the energy out of me, particularly since it’s at that set-in stage where I can go all day barely coughing, but be woken by coughing fits at night.

We say that virtue is its own reward, but sometimes it doesn’t seem like we really believe it.

Someone posted a “people on public assistance are lazy and entitled” meme. I’m afraid I rose to the bait and got a bit cranky about it.

I just hate those things so much. They have no purpose but to foment class resentment against the poor. I mean, what possible good can come from snarky public broadsides aimed against “people who are on food stamps but have nicer things than I do”?

And it just occurred to me what a horrible advertisement for a virtuous life that sentiment is. It basically says “I’m honest, prudent, hardworking, and contribute to society–and it’s made me envious, grasping, and miserable. I won’t be happy until you’re living by the same miserable social standards I am, you leeches.”

Cuz THAT’s what attracts people to honest living.

Bleah.

This past Monday, I had a work deadline to meet and decided I needed to get out of the house to concentrate (my house being left rather messy after a weekend with the kids at home). There’s nothing like a looming deadline to make one wish to concentrate on housecleaning! I wound up at a lovely little used book shop/Internet cafe. The owner made me a chai, and very thoughtfully refrained from giving me the wifi password until I asked for it, so I was able to avoid that set of distractions as well.

 I rewarded myself afterwards with a leisurely browse through the shelves, and was delighted to see that the owner had sorted the “paranormal romances” into a section of their own, leaving the sci-fi and fantasy sections to the somewhat more fleshed out and fully clothed characters. 🙂

Anyway, I picked up a copy of the first two Myth Inc. books, which I read as a teenager and have not read since. They hold up pretty well for light reading. So many books I loved at that age have not held up well, so it’s pleasant to find that Robert Asprin’s particular brand of silliness still pleases.

I’ve been saying the Novena to Our Lady, Undoer of Knots with daily email prompts from praymorenovenas.com. Who knew technology could be such a wonderful spiritual aid? There’s a week of the novena left, so feel free to join in. I’ve been keeping the kidnapped Nigerian girls in my intentions.

Jen’s Quick Take about her new blue-light cancelling glasses reminded me that I’ve been wanting to try out Flux. I’ve just installed it, so I’ll be taking it on it’s trial run tonight. I work in the evenings and have been having a hard time winding down after work, leaving me perpetually a little sleep-deprived, so we’ll see if this helps at all!

Something to ponder:

What is the secret of this pain and joy living together? The secret is surrender. We are all going to have pain in this life, and if we surrender to it in trust, like a little child, something happens. The pain does not disappear, but it is now wedded to God himself, and he produces from it a strange blend of joy and pain in our hearts and in our souls.
This is the secret of the saints. Until we learn this secret of surrender to pain, we live in deep anguish when we are in pain, and we are constantly striving to get ourselves out of this terrible, sometimes suffocating sense of not being able to live.
During a time of exposure to the root causes of our own woundedness and sinfulness, for example, we cannot help but uncover the pain in us, the source of which comes from original sin.
But gradually we must learn how to live with that pain so that God himself can produce in us an incredible blending of the cross with a strange mysterious joy that no one can ever, ever take from us.