A Sound of Sheer Silence

My brother's birthday is today.  In his honor, here are two videos from one of his favorite bands, who also played what were probably their last shows together this weekend in Atlanta.  Plus, there is never a bad time for Outkast. Happy Birthday, Jim.  Love you, brother. Bonus content:  My favorite Outkast song.

In every community, you are going to have the folks on the right-hand side of the spectrum.  These are the people who don't want anything to change, ever, and have little time for folks that maybe want to consider tweaking some stuff.  They exist in all institutions, from government to Star Wars fandom.  It is important to have folks like this, because they act as a break on the equal and opposite tendency to blow everything up and re-invent the wheel at every turn.  So, traditionalists are not a bad thing, at least not per se. I say this as a preface, because I don't want anyone to get the idea that I am picking on traditionalist Catholics, or taking the position that they are illegitimate.  I don't believe that.  I do think, however, that traditionalist Catholics make themselves an easy target.  Moreso than many traditionalist sides, traditionalist Catholics seem to be operating in a world that they have created for themselves, one that is at times...

I haven't written anything in a while for this blog.  Part of that involves outside commitments--work has been busy in the last few weeks. But it is mostly a function of not having much to say.  Or, rather, having lots of bits and pieces of things to say, without being able to string them together into a complete thought.  If you were to check out the internal dashboard for this blog, you will see a dozen or so drafts of posts, drafts that I am pretty confident I will never finish.  It's just not been happening for me of late. I think a big part of this chaos is a mirror of what is going on for me personally, particularly with regard to religion.  I've gotten myself into a rut, and I am not sure how to get out of it.  The rut, basically, is that I am not sure where I belong in terms of my religious faith.  I no longer feel at home as a Catholic in the Catholic Church, particularly on the macro scale of the institutional Church (as opposed to, say, th...