Blogging Towards Bethlehem: Discovering the Eternal in the Seasons of Ordinary Time

by Eugene Kennedy

Overview

"In one sense this book examines the events we witnessed together during the first years of this century. In another sense it is about everything we did not see but experienced anyway. These blogs chart the eternal we enter every day, even if we do not recognize it or cannot give it a name. These reflections open us to the timeless myths in which we all participate and to the wonder far greater than the wonders all around us....

Seeking ecstasy is, of course, a natural human activity, a clear signal about our nature, our transcendent possibilities, and the fact that although the poet speaks of "the measure of man" there is no measurement that adequately sums up the human person. Although a pseudo-ecstasy is for sale in various venues, real ecstasy is available free everywhere in ordinary life."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781616437268
Publisher:	Paulist Press
Publication date:	01/16/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	821 KB

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Other Side of Every Day     xi
The Brink of a New Century     1
The Millennium Mystery: Y2K and the Blog     3
The Last Season of the Old Century     5
Kitty Bitterman     7
The First Season of the New Century     13
Waiting for Us in the Past     15
The Theologian and the Cartoonist Say Farewell Together     19
Does the Freedom to Choose Diminish the Freedom to Love?     22
You Can't Take a Stand on Mid-air Ethics     25
The Seinfeld Syndrome and Holy Week     28
Long Lost Hearts that Saved Holy Week     31
Remembering Cardinal O'Connor     34
Fix the Airport, Lose the Mystery     37
A Sense of Humor, a Sense of Life     40
Garry Wills, John the Baptist, and Passionate Belief     43
Vatican Irony: Free Hit Man, Throw Out Nun     46
About Sir Alec Guinness     49
Midsummer Surprises for the Soul     52
Religion Not as Bad for Politics as Politics Is for Religion     55
Save the Spiritual Environment: Kill a Pundit     58
The Election's Spiritual Legacy: Splitting America     61
The Moments for Which We Give Thanks     64
Election Mess,Spiritual Mystery     67
Christmas, a Gift of Seeing     69
The Seasons of 2001     73
Pro-choice's Worst Nightmare: Science May Finish Its Sentence     75
Opus Dei's Secret Revealed: It Takes Spies in from the Cold     77
Time to Embrace     79
Physicists and the Sacraments of Little Things     82
Dear Jack, Dear Rosemary     84
Blasphemy or Prophecy?     89
Let Us Now Praise Not So Famous Women     92
Richard Leach, Dreamer of Dreams     95
McVeigh, Revelation, and Artificial Tears     97
Stem Cell Debate: Everything but Wonder     100
Good News for Humans: Genome Still a Mystery     103
The Last Day before the World Changed     105
Maybe This Is the Greatest Generation     108
The Voices in the Ruins     111
The Site     114
Revelations at Thanksgiving     117
The Mystery of the World as It Is     120
The Seasons of 2002     123
What Causes Sex Abuse by Priests? Vatican Changes Subject     125
Make You to Shine Like the Sun...     129
The Ashes of Mystery     133
Priest Sex Abuse a Moral Issue before It Is Anything Else      135
Searching for Our Wholeness     138
Build Anything, Ground Zero's Spirit Will Still Be There     141
Why Can't It Be Then?     143
After Dallas/Going Home     146
Dear Ann Landers     149
Why Do Babies Cry in Church?     151
Who Goes to Church Anyway?     154
The Architectural Equivalent of "Closure"     157
I Was at the Last Judgment This Week. I'll Bet You Were, Too     160
The Seasons of 2003     163
Whose Contemplative Life Is This Anyway?     165
Almost Home     167
Possessed by Mystery     169
Reality TV/Revelation TV     171
The Eyes of our Lenten War     174
Changing the Subject, or Why Victims Still Suffer     176
Grieving for David Bloom     179
Times Editors and the Bishops Separated at Birth     181
Midsummer Madness/Midsummer Mystery     183
Remembering Peg     186
John Geoghan, His Own Executioner     188
With the Mass, It's Not the Manners but the Meal     191
James Shannon: A Man for All Seasons     193
On September 11 Let the Pope Listen to America     197
Does Making the Sign of the Cross Get You a Hit?     199
For Thanksgiving, Take a Humanity Bath     201
A Christmas Meditation on Cathedral Pews     203
The Seasons of 2004     205
John Gregory Dunne: Good-bye, Dear Friend     207
Super Bowl Half-time Show: Nobody Grown Up Enough to Sin     211
Picasso and the Passion of Madrid     214
Reports: American Priests Are American Men     217
An Easter Voice from a Modern Tomb     220
True Confessions     223
Pope Not Infallible when He Calls America "Soulless"     226
Even Cardinals Have Bad Days     228
Disputes about Eucharist Contradict Its Nature     231
Catholicism Not Adrift or Foundering     233
Autumn's Song of the Human Deep     236
The Forgotten Commandment for the Elections     238
The Secret Cause of the Ebersol Tragedy     240
America's Christmas Distraction: The Body     242
Biggest Religion Story of Year: Media's Misunderstanding of Religion     244
The Seasons of 2005     247
The Media, the Tsunami, and Real Religion     249
Religion's Function: Mystery rather than Meaning     251
Abu Ghraib, the Sex Abuse Scandal, and Human Nature     254
Freedom Is More Spiritual than Political     257
Bereft Parents an Antidote for Michael Jackson Alive and Johnny Carson Dead     261
9/11, Sacrament of Love and Loss     263
The Widow and the Atlanta Killer: An Easter Story     265
Why We Cannot Look Away from Terri Schiavo's Eyes     269
The End of the World Happens Every Day     271
The Real Reason the World Is Fascinated by the Pope     273
Ordinary People Understand Ground Zero Better than Tycoons Do     275
Pols Should Heed Traditional Religion on Saying They're Sorry     278
Saul Bellow's Escape from Time     281
The Supreme Court: America's College of Cardinals     284
Stopping by a Motel on a Hazy Morning     286
What Really Happened to Us as the Shuttle Came Home     288
God Rest You, Merry Gentleman-Donald Healey     291
Leave the Politicians in the Mud as Katrina Purifies Us     296
Why Do People Leave Flowers on Street Corners?     299
The Seasons of 2006     301
Pope's Encyclical Helps Heal Sex Abuse Crisis     303
The Easter Mystery, Daylight Saving Time, Spring Fever, and Spring Training     305
Better to Find Its Appeal than to Ban Da Vinci Code     308
Religious Mystery Not in 666 but in Whitney and Laura     311
The Shuttle Reveals More than TV Book of Revelation     314
Seminary Guidelines Emphasize Celibacy over Service     316
Loaves and Fishes Gospel More about Compassion than Feeding     318

Editorial Reviews

The new age presses hard upon us, as technology alters our modes of communication, our expectations, our minds, and perhaps our very souls. This book, whose title plays almost shockingly on the words of W.B. Yeats, exemplifies such changes. Kennedy (psychology, emeritus, Loyola Univ.) collects more than 100 of his blogs, posted at the National Catholic Reporter, and other places around the Web. Readers should not expect the full and often embarrassing self-revelations found in blogs of the under-thirty set (and the unselfconscious of any age). These "blogs" have much more in common with newspaper columns, speaking intelligently of current events and the quotidian, with the wisdom that comes with experience and wide reading. For most collections.

—Graham Christian

Library Journal