1984 and Sobering Thoughts on Ash Wednesday

This isn’t explicitly religious (the source material is anything but religious in fact), but I thought it more appropriate to post the Weird Wednesday material yesterday, and put this up today.

This is a story about how people who have no values beyond their own desires and sense of mistreatment are easily destroyed by people and organizations who have no values but the will to power. The main character may be the product of his environment, but ultimately, being Winston is a choice.

Don’t be Winston or Julia. Understand what matters to you, do your best to cultivate habits of virtue and live up to whatever code of conduct you’ve managed to discern. Pray. But also, don’t feel smugly superior to Winston. Look at St. Peter the Apostle, virtue signaling about his courage and loyalty on Holy Thursday, and then denying his Lord that very night. We all have the opportunity to rise or fall. What will we do when that opportunity comes?

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Happy Candlemas!

Christmastide is on February 2. If your parish does the blessing of the throats on the feast of St. Blaise (February 3), maybe give it a shot. We need all the help we can get these days.

In other news, my editors/first readers sent back Spiderstar, the sequel to Shadow Captain, with their notes, so revisions will be ongoing for probably the next few weeks. Also need to work on the cover. Stay tuned.

PSA of a Religious Nature, With Phantom Menace Reference

Recently, I was given a strong reminder of how much of a struggle life can be. How much of a struggle doing the right thing can be. I am Catholic, so I offer prayers of petition to various saints, on the grounds that they were instruments of God on earth, and will continue to be instruments of God in heaven. One saint in particular Continue reading “PSA of a Religious Nature, With Phantom Menace Reference”