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The Dutchman Website: http://festungarnulfinger.blogspot.com/ Profile: Married over twenty years, three children, Latin Mass Catholic, small business owner, National Bolshevik, devilishly handsome. Recent posts by The Dutchman: I usually don’t post videos, but this is a lovely introduction to Chris Hedges, author of “I Don’t Belive In Atheists” I have read several of his books and recently heard him speak personally. He is a man of great insight and integrity and I cannot reccommend his books too highly. Once in a while, something will happen to me that really drives home how we no longer live in a Christian society, or even a society where Christian values predominate. About six weeks ago a woman opened up a yoga studio on the floor right above my print shop. After a day or so of holding yoga classes, she came down to tell me that the noise from my machinery didn’t really bother her (it is, after all, very low pitched and rhythmic), but that my radio did. And she asked if I could turn the radio off when there were classes in session. Fine, I’m a nice guy, sure. So for the next four weeks, I would go up to her studio on Monday mornings and get a schedule of the week’s classes so that I could accommodate her. Then, last Monday, I went up for a schedule, and she told me I could look it up on line. Well, that really frosted me. Here I was trying to accommodate her, by not playing the radio, and she couldn’t be bothered accommodating me by providing me with a schedule. Now, I can be a touchy guy, and so (just to see if I was looking at things the right way), I asked just about everyone I saw that day (co-workers, clients, my kids, etc.) how they added the situation up. One person thought my neighbor was just being a jerk, “She should have been bringing you down a schedule without your asking!” But EVERYONE ELSE asked if I had not immediately gone down-stairs and turned on the radio full-blast. That’s right, no one urged me to do the Christian thing and bear with her. Virtually everyone thought that I should strike back immediately. Wow! Rather surprising that a bourgeois liberal like Penelope Leach would say something so absolutely on the mark:
On 5 March 2003, I came home and, right after I closed the front door, my Bean-Girl ran up to me stark naked and give me a big hug. So I ask, “Why are you naked?” “Because I haven’t got any clothes on!” You may or may not think this is cute, but I do. After all, she’s my daughter. And you might be wondering how I know exactly what day it happened on. That’s because I wrote it down. In the kitchen, right underneighth a pile of un-read newspapers (mostly the Wanderer) and magazines (Harper’s, Mother Jones) and whatever book I’m reading (Nolte’s Three Faces of Fascism) you will find my current note-book where I write down everything almost as soon as it happens. On the same page as Bean-Girl’s clever tautology, I have other things she said or did: • Breakfast 3/7/3: sausage, chocolate crêpes, pickles. Kids do these things and you are convinced that they are the cleverest, funniest, cutest things ever, and that you will never forget them. But guess what? There are seven days each week, thirty or so days each month, and 365 1/4 days in each year and you do forget them. That is, unless you write them down. Keep a note-book handy and, if it’s not at hand, write things down on scraps of paper or in your date book. Take a trip to the zoo or someplace interesting? Have them tell you their impressions over dinner and write them down. At the end of the year, I Click here to continue reading “Write it down!”Is anyone else bothered by the increasing amount of political content on this blog? A quick check on the “About” page shows these to be the purposes of this blog:
Nothing there about fiscal policy, war, elections, or how the Israelis are helping out in Haiti while the Arabs aren’t. Since joining this blog two years ago, I have been pretty scrupulous about posting only fatherhood related items and confining my politix to my own blog. By their very nature, both politics and religion are very divisive. I visit this blog every day hoping to find a group of men than I can agree with on matters of religion, family, and morals, not to be aggravated by my political differences with them. It’s no secret that I’m pretty much a socialist, but first-and-foremost I’m a believing Catholic. The value of this blog is that it is a place where Catholic Dads can share their insights, thoughts, and stories, and this value is degraded when the blog merely becomes a soap-box for political opinion. My friend Moira has a new baby and she is feeling rather overwhelmed. Her little boy is fussy, aggressive, restless, and she feels unable to cope. Moira’s even said that “perhaps this motherhood thing isn’t for me.” Naturally, I’ve done my best to reassure her. In point of fact, she’s a fine mother who couldn’t be more loving or attentive to her child. A lot of the problem is that her first child is a boy, and they are routinely more restless than girls. (It is my fondest wish for new mothers to have the girl first, so as to get used to babies in general, and then have the boy and get used to trouble.) But much of the problem is that she feels isolated and alone. Her mom had lousy maternal instincts, most of her friends are still single and none of the others have had any kids yet, and the advice she reads on-line is both dogmatic and contradictory, so she hasn’t much of a support system. Of course, she feels she can count on me, but I’m a Dad and much of what she’s going through are distinctly motherly self-doubts. Perhaps the best thing is that she’s begun making friends with some of the other moms in our parish, and so I see this as a low spot she is going through, rather than a real crisis. (Of course, an extra prayer or two from a Catholic Dad wouldn’t hurt things one bit.) Now, Moira and I are very close friends but, while he’s a fine fellow and I count him as a friend, her husband and I are not close enough for me to presume to offer him any unsolicited advice. Were Click here to continue reading “Advice to the Husbands of New Mothers”My son was complaining the other day about the key plot twist in an old episode of Perry Mason that he had seen on TV. The key to the mystery was that there were two guns, the murder weapon and one that was never fired, and that the only witness, a woman, couldn’t tell the difference between the two. Plausible enough, my son thought, except that one was a revolver while the other was an automatic, and so the difference ought to have been immediately apparent to anyone. “Well, she was a woman,” I countered, “Guns aren’t important to women.” “Dad! Anyone can tell the difference between a revolver and a gat!” “Ah, maybe. Say, did you see your girlfriend today?” “Yeah.” “Notice what she was wearing?” “Of course!” “What color were her shoes?” “Shoes?” he asked in a tone that indicated he shouldn’t even be expected to know. I nodded and called his sister into the room. I asked her, “Hey, Bean-Girl, what’s the difference between a revolver and an automatic?” “Uh — well they’re both guns, right?” When I nodded, she went on, “Does an automatic have more bullets?” “Something like that,” I changed the subject, “See your friend DeeDee today?” “I see her on the bus everyday.” “What color were her shoes?” “Black Converse high-tops with the white circle on the ankle, why?” “Well, because Pod-Man knows the difference between an automatic and a revolver, but he doesn’t know what color shoes his girlfriend was wearing today.” She shook her head, saying to Pod-Man before she left the room, “Guns are stupid; shoes are important.” So I then told my son always to keep in mind a few lessons: Click here to continue reading “Perry Mason and the Case of the Stupid Guns and Important Shoes”
I’m spiritual, but not religious. I don’t need to go to Church, God is everywhere. God knows what’s in my heart. And now, a new one:
Just to remind you that it is this Sunday! ========================================== Something like two years ago, when I first joined the Catholic Dads, I noticed that frequent poster, John Jensen, was from the Chicagoland area. We began to communicate by e-mail and were pleased to find out that he frequently took his family to my parish to hear the Latin Mass. We resolved to meet each other, which we did at that year’s parish picnic. We had a great talk that afternoon and have been good friends ever since. Why, not two weeks ago I was over at this house to celebrate the baptism of his fifth child. Not only that, but our circle of friends are beginning to overlap, we are both friends now with the Scheidlers and the Willinghams, whom we met through each other. In fact, this has been such a good experience, that I would like to extend an invitation to all the Catholic Dads in the Chicagoland area to attend our parish picnic! Here are the details: Annual Parish Picnic, 16 August, 2009, immediately following the 11AM mass. Let me assure you that this will be a great time! We always have lots of brats and German beer, the Westside Jazz Band plays all your favorite hits from the 1920’s, and there’s the ever-popular “Dunk the Monk” booth. The church is a beautiful “Polish Basilica,” the music is divine, and you can go to any flavor or mass that you like (Novus Ordo in English, Novus Ordo in Latin, Tridentine high or low). Best of all, you’ll have a chance to meet all-around Click here to continue reading “Reminder to the Chicagoland Catholic Dads” |
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