Some extra Friday notes, emerging after the 7 Quick Takeswere composed last night.
- I see that President Trump is going to award the Medal of Freedom to Jim Ryun today.
I have a Jim Ryun moment!
No, it’s not captured in the lovely vintage photo montage below, but it did happen in that location – in our apartment complex in Lawrence, Kansas in the late 60’s.
That’s me (left) and my friend Paula there. We were tight. We learned that Jim Ryun lived in our complex. We’d never seen him around, and he was ruhl famous. JoJo White lived in the same complex, but we’d seen him regularly.
Time to smoke out Jim Ryun. So, we did what all enterprising pre-teens do…go around asking if anyone has any “odd jobs” they need done. Not as likely to find takers in an apartment complex as it would be in a neighborhood, but you know. Worth a shot.
So yes, we did go knock on his door, he answered, smiled kindly at us, as I recall and say, no, he didn’t have any odd jobs for us to do.
And that’s my Jim Ryun moment.
More interesting probably is that this is the cross on that wall up there. Now on a wall here, fifty years later.
And yes, highly uncharacteristic of my Remnant-Wanderer subscribing mother to gift a Risen Christ cross, but perhaps that’s all they were selling in 1967, my First Communion year.
2. Received a nice note yesterday, on a day when encouragement was particularly welcome:
When I was 15 and about to be confirmed in the Catholic Church, I encountered anti-Catholicism for the first time. I bought so much into it that I soon wanted to leave the Church and become an Evangelical Protestant Fundamentalist. I even went so far as to want to become a pastor so I could attack Catholicism from the pulpit for a living. But later on, after a long time in darkness,I encountered your book “Prove It! Church”.Reading it at the time made me so mad because I couldn’t refute your arguments.
I had to put it down every once and a while because I thought I thought it would convince me to become Catholic again and then I’d go to hell. After this, I decided to read the Fathers of the Church and give Scripture an honest read and not read only the verses that the Protestants told me to read. Needless to say, I did not find Protestantism in any of this. I was so frustrated because I just couldn’t validate my positions with the Bible. Especially when it came to my man-made idea that baptism was merely a symbolic ordinance that didn’t wash away sin. I couldn’t find this belief in the Fathers or the Bible.
So I started going to the chapel in my high school all the time and just praying, “Jesus, show me which religion is right. I’ll do whatever you tell me. Just show me the truth.”
Then, a little later, I came across a playlist on YouTube about how the Bible teaches baptismal regeneration and infant baptism. The first verse brought up was Acts 2:38. I knew the verse. I had tried to explain away a hundred times how Saint Peter says that baptism is for the forgiveness of sins. But when I heard that verse read once again, I couldn’t take it. I put my phone aside and just stared ahead. Then, I started repeating two words to myself over and over again: “I’m Catholic. I’m Catholic.”
3. The Loyola Kids Book of Catholic Signs and Symbols apparently was a finalist for an award? Here’s the list.
4.I decided to put the first two chapters of two book notions I have up on Wattpad. You probably won’t like them and will be offended, even, maybe, but here they are. I’m contemplating which one to go with. No, I’m not taking a vote. I think it will be the Mexico one at this point. Although there is a third one that’s pulling me too, but I need to write another chapter before I put it up on Wattpad.
Charlotte was Both 