NO ONE READS IT ANYWAY -- #1 SON ABOUT "365 THOUGHTS"

No one reads it anyway.  That's what I heard about the blog that you, being someone is reading.  You And 1,670 others in the short time that this has been public.  In the short time that I have been on this earth I have come to the conclusion that whatever is written will someday be read.  I grew up in a place where there were newspapers competing for eyeballs every day.  There were English Language newspapers, Polish Language newspapers, Chinese Language newspapers and French Language newspapers.  Some one had to be reading them.  I remember that every weekend we would have two New York City newspapers in our house.  They featured great colored comics sections and a Sunday Magazine.  I remember very vividly one Sunday when the magazine cover had some scantily clad cheer leaders and our baby brother who was all of about 7 or 8 made the "woo-woo" sound.  Even my overly modest mother laughed at that.  Print survived because people read.  The Internet is popular because it presents so many choices to be read.  Ideas abound.  (Maybe not here, but they're out there somewhere.)
As human beings we have a drive to get a glimpse inside one another's heads.  We want to know what the other person is thinking.  We are driven to validate our own opinions.  We do that most easily when a person lays it out in black and white rather than to keep it covered inside his/her coconut. Reading is like being at a car race, rather than at a horse race.  What's the difference?  I never met anyone who would go to a horse race to see a crash.  You?  When we read we are always looking for the "Gotcha" moment [crrasshh] when we can firmly disagree with the author's position.  That's what I love about reading on the Internet.  If I read something that lights my fire, man, it's like, comment, comment, comment.  I always put my name too.  None of this anonymous, light a firecracker and run away stuff.  I want you to know that someone is enjoying the clash of opinion, whether or not you intended to cause a clash.  So don't tell me that "no one reads it anyway."  I know that someone is reading it because my computer tells me so...and...the comment box does too.  And remember to put your real name because "anonymity is the enemy of progress in truth."

BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL

I gotta break this habit

Who, me?  Yup.  I've been doing this a lot lately.  Not because I HAVE to get something done, but because I love the silence and the quiet.  Problem is that it has a tendency to make my day begin later and that is really not good.  Those of you who have the same tendency perhaps do the same thing I do.  I push myself past the two or three yawns that should be obeyed as invitations to bed.  Once I have stared them down, I'm good for the long haul.
Problem also is that I get so much done.  Like now, I'm preparing a presentation for the Secular Franciscans over at another parish.  I've had it in my head for some long days now.  Finally tonight I sat down and made it appear "on paper", so to speak.  So, that's done.
Problem also was that I had some serious thinking to do about a question that came up about marriage and what Jesus has to say about it.  A Catholic friend of mine who has been entertaining some Jehovah's Witnesses Missionaries for about 8 or 9 weeks let himself get snookered into a corner about the Jesus exception in favor of divorce.  *&%@#++!!  So I wrote him a "study" about it and you can read it, if you like, by clicking here. 
Then I had this other thing to do, get an itinerary done for a pilgrimage to Rome, LaSalette, Paray-le-Monial, Lourdes and Paris.  So I did that and wrote a little nasty introduction to the travel agent who was trying to send us in two directions at the same time.  Love the French!
So see, I get to do all this and still spend some emotional time watching the Egyptians celebrate in Cairo.  After 8,000 years of civilization, it takes all this?  After 8,000 years and we still have viciously oppressive theocracy in Iran?  The area of Babylon!  The inventor of the alphabet!  The inventor of the zero, you know, like in "0".  Think of it.  It's quite a concept.  My big thought is, "Don't human beings ever learn anything?"
Come to think of it, although that was not the thought that began this whole thing, I have just decided that it is time for beddy-bye because that last thought is just so neat!  I'm quitting while I'm ahead.  I'm throwing myself into the arms of Morpheus.