Becoming Like Children

Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven.   Matthew 18:2

Photo Credit: @jamesgraysonhicks; My three grandsons, waiting for the train to see Pope Francis.

I have noted with some interest this week that several of the daily Mass readings—on the heels of Pope Francis’ visit to the United States—have been about becoming like children. A defining feature of children is that they trust their parents; trust that is also meant to be a delineating mark of Catholics in regard to the Pope. Yet, while many “faithful” Catholics spent the week picking apart Pope Francis’ messages—looking for a blunder, for something with which they disagreed—it seems that his messages managed to touch and transform the hearts of many who supposedly do “not follow us,” which God-incidentally, was the Gospel for Sunday’s Mass in Philadelphia (Mark 9:38-43).

I sat glued to the television watching the Pope make his way from the White House to Ground Zero, to the United Nations, and through the City of Brotherly Love. I was struck by the fact that the secular news media, typically known for their full frontal attack on the Catholic Church, gave non-stop coverage to a man who one mystified reporter laughingly stated was “not a rock star coming with pomp and pageantry,” but the Bishop of Rome, of all people. Furthermore, the personal reaction that secular news reporters had to the successor of St. Peter was nothing short of stunning.

“Here he comes! Here he comes!” a CNN reporter squealed gleefully as the Pope’s motorcade approached, unable to hide her excitement. “The crowd is electric as the shadow of Peter passes by!” she said breathlessly as the Pope’s motorcade passed the CNN platform. She then went on to share that she had left the Catholic Church in dismay over the sexual abuse scandals, but that the love she’s felt from Pope Francis has reignited her faith, bringing her back to the Church. “He passed right by our CNN platform out there and I can’t tell you what I felt. I didn’t expect it. It was the presence of holiness and goodness…Pope Francis is speaking a message that is hungrily received by a world that is desperate to hear good news.”

That message is the unconditional love and mercy of God for every single one of us; a communiqué that is a balm to the ears of so many who are beaten down and exhausted by the amount of hatred, rancor and division in this world.

My husband, Mark, and I watched the coverage in stunned silence, smiling broadly over the childlike exuberance repeatedly displayed by secular news reporters on both CNN and MSNBC. It was real. Their hearts were touched by Pope Francis’ love. So much so that New York Times reporter David Brooks said Sunday morning on NBC’s Meet the Press:

"the big effect of this week is not what (the Pope) says on global warming. It's that hundreds of thousands of people will have their hearts opened by his presence. And (for) some percentage, their life will be utterly altered by this week. Today in Philadelphia, there'll be tens of thousands of people whose souls are just exploding. And they will look back on this moment as the moment their life changed."

His words resonated with what broadcast journalist Maria Shriver wrote in her blog on Monday, the day after the Pope departed:

"Francis has had a dramatic impact on my life this past week. It’s almost hard to put into words…No, I didn’t get to interview him. I didn’t even get to meet him, but it didn’t actually matter because his words met my heart and ignited my spirit. I felt them deep in my soul. Every sermon, every speech moved me further, moved me deeper. Some I’ve read and reread 10 times."

She then proceeded to describe how, since Pope Francis arrived in the United States, she has taken “an internal inventory of everything in her life, reassessing power, success, joy, money…I’m going forward differently because of him.”

All of this has made me ask myself: have I been as open as those who don’t claim to adhere to everything the Church teaches, yet whose hearts were accessible enough to listen, to trust, and to learn from what Pope Francis had to say? Am I willing to turn, to change, to let the Pope’s visit make a difference in my life? Will I, like Pope Francis, approach others with love, mercy and kindness—which will surely win more souls for Christ than any good dose of scolding about the doctrines of the Catholic Church ever could?

I must admit that on day one of his visit, I wanted the Pope to read our President the riot act. Instead, he simply shared the beauty and joy of his faith in Jesus Christ, as he continued to do throughout his journey. By day five, I could see that Pope Francis was disarming the skeptics and unbelievers with humility and unconditional love, the hallmark of his childlike heart—signs that are meant to be a hallmark of every child’s heart.

Photo Credit: @jamesgraysonhicks; My little grandsons, trying to get a glimpse of the Pope.

Sowing Seeds of Faith

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My good friend, Pat, was the first person I knew who returned to the Catholic Church. We struck up a deep friendship at a little evangelical church in New Orleans, and five years later the Blessed Mother brought us both back to the faith of our childhood. Pat who now lives in Asheville, N.C., recently launched a new ministry called “Theotokos Prayer.” The ministry evangelizes others and encourages them to pray through the vehicle of beautiful, handcrafted prayer strands. Each strand features personalized medals, crosses and colors which hold a special meaning for the recipient. My prayer strand, which Pat gave me as a wedding gift, has a medal of my patron, St. Jude, as well as a cross with the four major basilicas of Rome on it. I had it blessed by Pope Francis during our honeymoon in Rome and I absolutely love it!

It is my delight and honor to introduce to you “Theotokos Prayer” by sharing with you Pat’s first blog from their website. I encourage you to visit www.theotokosprayer.com to order a personalized prayer strand for yourself or someone you love.  I promise, you will not be disappointed! Blessings and grace! Judy

How Theotokos Began

“That man has learned to live well who has learned to pray well.”     St. Augustine

Theotokos began with a handmade gift of a St. Joseph’s chaplet. My dear friend, Betsy, had begun making chaplets and wanted to share this ministry with me. We then started to give them to the homeless, First Communion classes, family and friends. We discovered along the way that people of all denominations and walks of life were drawn to this form of prayer—using prayer strands on which to pray. Customizing the strands (which have the number of beads of a decade of the Rosary) by choosing specific beads and patron saints made the strands even more meaningful for the recipient.  I would write letters to the recipients affirming God’s love for them and their family often during times of great struggle, as in the loss of a loved one, or deep joy, such as the birth of a child.

As this journey unfolded, friends and family encouraged me to develop a way to reach more people. Thus, Theotokos was born. The purpose of Theotokos, which means “God bearer” or “Mother of God” in Greek, is threefold. Foremost is to have people draw closer to God and each other through prayer. Secondly, to reach people who would not ordinarily be drawn to the Rosary, Our Blessed Mother and the Saints.  Thirdly, to have the strands blessed, thereby fulfilling the request of the Blessed Mother for people to have blessed objects in their homes and on their person.

The Pope has called for creative ways to evangelize our culture and this endeavor seeks to do just that. There are moments in everyone’s life that are opportunities to reach out to our family and friends. These prayer strands are one simple way of reintroducing faith to the people in our circle of influence.

Currently there are five strands for specific occasions or needs: the Child Strand for the birth of a child, Baptism, or First Communion; the Family Strand to aid families in praying for one another; the Healing Strand for those suffering in all the forms our suffering may take; the Wedding Strand, and finally the New Orleans Saints strand (they need a lot of prayer). People are drawn to beauty and each of these strands is carefully crafted to be as beautiful and appealing as possible. I also have images enclosed with each prayer strand that evoke beauty, such as a picture of Mother Teresa or a bride with her new spouse. The one closest to my heart is of our eldest daughter, who died in 2001. This image of Ashley embracing her then two-year-old daughter so lovingly depicts the treasure of children.

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Prayer is a gift that is meant to be shared with and for others.  I am humbled at being able to bring this endeavor to fruition with the aid of the Holy Spirit and the inestimable help of dear friends accompanying me along the way. Thank you!

“Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”     Philippians 4:6-7

The Holy Name of Mary

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For many years, I have tried to explain to my Protestant friends how and why Catholics love Mary. I came across this exquisite reflection by Thomas Merton this week in his book, "New Seeds of Contemplation."  He says it much better than I could ever hope to do, so I share this with you on this special feast of Our Lady.  May we all come to resemble Jesus by resembling Mary, whose poverty, hiddenness, and total abandonment to God made her a perfect instrument of His glory. 

Blessings and grace to you!  Judy  

Mary alone, of all the saints, is, in everything, incomparable. She has the sanctity of them all and yet resembles none of them. And still we can talk of being like her. This likeness to her is not only something to desire – it is one human quality most worthy of our desire: but the reason for that is that she, of all creatures, most perfectly recovered the likeness to God that God willed to find, in varying degrees, in us all.

It is necessary, no doubt, to talk about her privileges as if they were something that could be made comprehensible in human language and could be measured by some human standard. It is most fitting to talk about her as a Queen and to act as if you knew what it meant to say she has a throne above all the angels. But this should not make anyone forget that her highest privilege is her poverty and her greatest glory is that she is most hidden, and the source of all her power is that she is as nothing in the presence of Christ, of God.

This is often forgotten by Catholics themselves, and therefore it is not surprising that those who are not Catholic often have a completely wrong conception of Catholic devotion to the Mother of God. They imagine, and sometimes we can understand the reasons for doing so, that Catholics treat the Blessed Virgin as an almost divine being in her own right, as if she had some glory, some power, some majesty of her own that placed her on a level with Christ himself. They regard the Assumption of Mary into heaven as a kind of apotheosis and her Queenship as a strict divinization. Hence her place in the Redemption would seem to be equal to that of her Son. But this is all completely contrary to the true mind of the Catholic Church. It forgets that Mary's chief glory is in her nothingness, in the fact of being “Handmaid of the Lord,” as one who in becoming the Mother of God acted simply in loving submission to His command, in the pure obedience of faith. She is blessed not because of some mythical pseudo-divine prerogative, but in all her human and womanly limitations as one who has believed. It is the faith and fidelity of this humble handmaid, “full of grace” that enables her to be the perfect instrument of God, and nothing else but His instrument. The work that was done in her was purely the work of God. “He that is mighty hath done great things in me.” The glory of Mary is purely and simply the glory of God in her, and she, like anyone else, can say that she has nothing that she has not received from Him through Christ.

As a matter of fact, this is precisely her greatest glory: that having nothing of her own, retaining nothing of a “self” that could glory in anything for her own sake, she placed no obstacle to the mercy of God and in no way resisted His love and His will. Hence she received more from Him than any other saint. He was able to accomplish His will perfectly in her, and His liberty was in no way hindered from its purpose by the presence of an egotistical self in Mary. She was and is in the highest sense a person precisely because, being “immaculate,” she was free from any taint of selfishness that might obscure God's light in her being. She was then a freedom that obeyed Him perfectly and in this obedience found the fulfillment of perfect love…

In all the great mystery of Mary, then, one thing remains most clear: that of herself she is nothing, and that God for our sakes delighted to manifest His glory and His love in her.

It is because she is, of all the saints,  the most perfectly poor and the most perfectly hidden, the one who has absolutely nothing whatever that she attempts to possesses as her own, that she can most fully communicate to the rest of us the grace of the infinitely selfless God. And we will most truly possess Him when we have emptied ourselves and become poor and hidden as she is, resembling Him by resembling her...

This absolute emptiness, this poverty, this obscurity holds within it the secret of all joy because it is full of God.  To seek this emptiness is true devotion to the Mother of God.  To find it is to find her. And to be hidden in its depths is to be full of God as she is full of Him, and to share her mission of bringing Him to all men.

Katrina Reflections: The Rule of Lawlessness

Passion of Saint John the Baptist I wrote this hard-hitting piece a year after Hurricane Katrina.  With violence running rampant in our culture, and in light of the horrific Planned Parenthood scandal, I feel compelled to share it with you now.  I believe it is more pertinent than ever and I've added a few final thoughts for reflection.  May God bless and restore our nation, and may St. John the Baptist, whose beheading we remember today as he confronted the moral evil before him, pray for us.

Photo Credit: Joe Clader https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Patrolling_an_area_that_was_previously_underwater_in_New_Orleans_September_2005.jpg

Growing up in New Orleans, we never locked our doors. We seldom even closed our windows, as we lived in the swampy heat of New Orleans without the convenience of air-conditioning. We were free to roam the streets day or night without fear of crime or bodily harm, and we spent hot summer nights playing “kick the can” with a whole city block as our playground. I now live in a subdivision behind a guard gate in the suburbs to simulate this same sense of safety.

St. Thomas Aquinas taught that our actions form us into the kind of people we become. Additionally, our actions speak volumes about the kind of people that we are. We convey this belief with the old adage: “actions speak louder than words.” Needless to say, actions spoke at deafening volumes in the days following Hurricane Katrina.

I sat in a hotel room in Memphis, Tennessee with my now late husband, Bernie, and our five children watching in shock as lawlessness broke out on the streets of New Orleans. People looted businesses, burned shopping malls and began to destroy what was left of the city. My family and I sat in stunned silence as we heard stories of rape, murder and theft, and as we watched our fellow New Orleanians help themselves not only to the supplies they needed to sustain life, but to large screen TVs, stereos, fancy shoes and fine clothing.

We listened to endless hours of analysis on television, as reporters tried to assimilate what had happened. The bottom line, they concluded, was that the crisis had brought out the worst in human nature, and that the government was to blame for not showing up sooner.   What we never heard, however, was the conclusion that these acts accurately reflected the belief systems of our current culture. I, for one, believe that there was a deeper truth conveyed by these actions, and I suggested as much to several people in the weeks following Katrina, when I proposed that the mayhem in our beloved city spoke volumes about the kind of people we have become.

A central part of the Catholic faith is our belief in “incarnational reality,” which holds that the physical realm is a visible, tangible sign of a deeper, invisible reality. This belief is rooted and grounded in our faith in the Incarnation of Christ—that pivotal moment in history when the “Word of God” became flesh. There are incarnational symbols aplenty in the Catholic faith, including the Church and her seven sacraments. These are visible, sensible signs instituted by Christ to communicate grace to His people. But “enfleshed” signs and symbols are not unique to the Catholic faith, as there are incarnational signs all around us that point us to deeper truths.

I consider the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to be such a sign, and I believe that we would do well to read what it is saying to us. “The rule of law,” says the sign “has become the rule of lawlessness. You have lost the proper understanding of freedom, and it shows in the way you behave.”

Half a century ago, we had a hurricane, too. Her name was Betsey and she left the city of New Orleans flooded and without electricity, food or water for over a week. We shared our supplies with our neighbors and we helped each other clean up. We never dreamed that our fellow citizens would try to take our things, or that people would wreak havoc in the city by looting businesses or destroying property. The National Guard was not needed, because the Internal Guard still governed us. The Internal Guard was our conscience, and it was formed in a specific understanding of freedom. To be free meant that we enjoyed personal and political liberty, and that we had the responsibility of exercising these freedoms within the boundaries of self-restraint. A person who was truly free could exercise command of himself, and this self-possession was visibly and tangibly manifested in a citizen who followed both the laws of God and man with ease.

Our current understanding of freedom is that we can do whatever we wish. We have thrown off the shackles of self-control and self-discipline for the “freedom” of self-indulgence. We have confused liberty with absolute license, and the streets of New Orleans in September 2005 bore visible witness to this truth. This version of freedom says: “I will do what I want, so long as the law does not stop me!” The concept of freedom that laid the foundation for American democracy spoke another language entirely. It echoed the words of “self-control” and “liberty in law.”

It struck me this week as I watched the eighth Planned Parenthood video and also remembered the violent outbreak in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina (and in too many other cities to name since then) that the rampant violence in our culture is an incarnational sign of freedom gone mad. We have rejected the concept of objective truth, and consequently we believe in nothing. And we have distorted the concept of freedom until it is almost unrecognizable. A culture that believes in nothing, with no limits on its behavior, becomes a culture that will resort to violence and death when life becomes challenging. We are seeing that reality incarnated in spades today.

What is the answer?  Pure and simply, it is a radical return to Jesus Christ and to the Christian principles upon which this nation was founded.  Christ alone has the words of life.  He alone can save us.

 "John the Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins."      Mark 1:4

Where Does That Leave Me?

With all of the Bread of Life readings this month, I thought a repeat of this blog would be timely.  I'm in beautiful Wyoming this weekend for a retreat.  Please pray for me!   Happy Feast of the Queenship of Mary!   Blessings and grace,     Judy

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Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you” (John 6: 53). The readings about the Eucharist over the past weeks have jolted forward a memory of a conversation I had more than fifteen years ago. It was with my friend Cecil, who was an evangelical Protestant at the time. We were deeply engaged in a dialogue about whether the Catholic faith was “true” when the subject of the Eucharist came up.

“Christ’s teaching about receiving His flesh and blood was meant to be symbolic,” Cecil maintained. “He said ‘unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you,’” she went on. “If that was literal, where does that leave me and the rest of Christians who don’t receive the Eucharist?”

“That’s a good question,” I offered back. “Where does that leave you?”

I can still see the look of consternation on Cecil’s face, and I could tell that she was pondering the question seriously. So seriously that she went back and reread everything the Bible has to say about the subject. Particularly compelling during that review was the fact that “many of his disciples” parted ways with Jesus over His insistence that they had to eat His flesh and drink His blood. Plus the fact that He didn’t chase after them saying: “I was speaking in parables, guys! Come back!” Instead, He upped the ante for the ones who remained, saying: “Do you also want to leave?” (John 6:67).

The shock of Christ’s teaching on the Eucharist would prove to be a hinge that turned Cecil toward the Catholic Church—a hinge that ultimately led her to enter the Church in the year 2000, where she received Holy Communion for the very first time. It was impossible to deny that Jesus meant what He said about His flesh and blood literally, or that that’s the way His disciples and the early Church understood it.

I am convinced that one of Satan’s most ingenious strategies ever was to disengage half of the Body of Christ from “the Body of Christ.” The “source and summit of the Christian life,”* the Eucharist intimately unites us to Jesus Christ, preserving, increasing and renewing the life of grace in us.* Moreover, the Eucharist strengthens us in God’s love and roots us deeply in Jesus Christ, so that when the storms of life come—and come they will—we remain steadfast in our faith. Buffeted, maybe. Shaken loose from the foundation, no.

I experienced this reality personally when my life imploded in 2008. And I saw it again recently in living color in the life of my friend Connie, whose sudden separation and impending divorce sent her whirling physically, emotionally and spiritually. I offered to go spend the weekend with her to lend support, and I was honestly fretting over what to say in the face of so much pain. It was when she asked, “How did you survive all of the things you’ve been through?” that the one and only thing that needed to be said flowed seamlessly from my lips.

“I’d be dead without the Eucharist,” I stated pointedly. And I meant it. I firmly believe that what sustained me during that intense period of crisis was the fact that I had spent twenty-five years as a daily communicant. “Make the Eucharist your life, Connie,” I advised. “Make the Eucharist your life.”

A light came on in that reminder to my friend who was trying to regain her footing, and Connie’s hardly missed a day at Mass or Adoration since. The change in her has been dramatic and noticeable, and it’s apparent that her feet are back on solid ground as she moves into an unknown future.

“Where does that leave me?” so many of us have asked in moments of great trial like death, divorce and other life shattering events. It leaves us utterly dependent on His provision for us, standing squarely on the promise that in and through the Eucharist, He remains in us, and we in Him (John 6:56).

The Eucharist is no mere symbol—it is not just “empty calories” in the smorgasbord of the spiritual life. It is life itself, Christ Himself, waiting and wanting to feed us. The Eucharist is creation, redemption and sanctification all rolled into one. It is a lifeline to the eternal which effects communion with Christ that holds us together until we, at last, are held by Him.

* Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 1324

* Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 1391-1392

Finding Hope When Hope Seems Lost

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Dear Friends,

With all of the bad news around us, could you use a good dose of HOPE?  I encourage you to watch my recent address to Legatus, which I gave on the Feast of St. Mary Magdalen.  It explains how I found hope when hope seemed lost.  Enjoy!  Please share!  Click here to watch the talk.

Praying always for God's blessings upon you and yours,

Judy

 

 

Why I Remain Catholic

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No, this isn't the Feast of Corpus Christi, but I’d like to chime in on a discussion. I want to respond to Elizabeth Scalia’s (The Anchoress, Patheos.com) challenge to present a cyberspace cloud of witnesses all answering one question: Why do I remain Catholic?

So here it is: Why do I remain Catholic?

The short answer is simple: the Eucharist. The long answer is connected to the short answer: because there’s nowhere else to go and nothing else in this life that I desire more.

Though raised Catholic, I came to a personal relationship with Christ in an evangelical Christian church in New Orleans when I was twenty-three years old. The invitation and subsequent decision to give my life to Christ was a total game-changer for me—one that radically altered the trajectory of my life. I am exceedingly grateful for the clear, concise call to conversion I received in that little evangelical church. I still maintain that we Catholics could learn a lot from our separated brethren about pure-D evangelization.

However…and there is a “however”… two church splits and an ego-showdown between pastors left me wandering around looking for a “church home.” Though I won’t tell the whole story now, suffice it to say that Our Lady grabbed hold of me and led me back to the Catholic Church, back to the family table. By the grace of God, I believed and was convinced that Jesus Christ is truly present in the Eucharist,  and there was only one thing left to do. To walk headlong with mouth and heart open to receive bread from heaven—real, living bread—His flesh for my life and the life of the world.

As an evangelical Christian, I had hung on each word that came forth from the mouth of my pastor as though my life depended on it. His sermons were my sustenance, and I gathered like a bird to its mother, wanting to feed right from its mouth. A good sermon? I’d been “fed,” and I’d come back for another. But as the division in our little church increased, the sermons withered, and I was hungry for something more.

I returned to the Catholic Church, no longer lost, but famished, thirsty, wounded. Christ nourished me with His flesh, slaked my thirst with living blood, and gave Himself over to me. Asking no money, no tithes, no payment, He came inside me, closer than I am to myself. For twenty-six years, I’ve consumed Him lavishly and freely, and I still can’t contain the awe.

I don’t pretend to understand the mystery of the Eucharist; I can hardly scratch its sublime surface. But this much I know: I’ve tasted real food and real drink, flesh and blood poured into me right from the Cross, and there is no turning back.  I’ve departed the cult of the sermon and arrived at the heavenly feast. It’s a feast to which, while dim shadows exist, there is no counterpart on earth.

Christ feeds me, feeds us,  His body formed and extended in time and space. His flesh is true food, His blood true drink; it is the life of the world.

Beauty Will Save the World

Photo Credit: Word on Fire

God showed up our home last night. He came through beauty, and I’m so grateful we didn’t miss Him.

God came in the form of four incredibly talented young musicians and singers, friends of my Nashville-based daughter Kara Klein, who want to transform our culture. They’re part of a new outreach called “Love Good Music,” founded by inspirational speaker and composer Jimmy Mitchell for the explicit purpose of evangelizing our culture through beauty. (See their website at lovegoodmusic.com for more information.)

I’m not sure what I expected, but what a breath of fresh, inspirational air Jacqui and Cathryn Treco, Chris Cole and Shawn Williams proved to be. Their simplicity, faith and joy blew me away, not to mention their jaw-dropping talent. While all who attended the impromptu concert were amazed by the young troupe’s musical ability, their mission is bigger and deeper than to impress others with their gifts. Their quest is to draw the hearts and minds of those present to God through beauty, standing in direct opposition to a secular culture where art forms have become increasingly vulgar, obscene and violent.

Love Good Music troupe and Kara Klein

These young people understand that the human heart is hungry for the good, the true, and the beautiful. Drawing upon a foundational theme in the Catholic faith—that is, the power of beautiful art to draw men’s hearts to the transcendent—the musicians hope to inspire others through heart-piercing entertainment. Both Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II, a classically trained pianist and a gifted actor respectively, wrote about beauty’s power to pierce hearts and point men to God. Both quoted in their own work the famous line from Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot,” which says, “Beauty will save the world.”  This is possible by reawakening man to the infinite, the transcendent, to that which calls us beyond ourselves. It happens by pointing man to the true artist and creative force behind all that is beautiful, namely God.  This is precisely what Fr. Robert Barron communicates in his immensely popular "Catholicism" series.

Thanks to the young artists who convincingly conveyed the power of beauty last night through their wholesome, delightful art. May we resurrect in our culture a prominent place for such beauty, for beauty can change the world.

Please enjoy the below video clip of Shawn Williams on violin.  Forgive me for the homemade quality of the video, as it doesn't do him justice, but you'll get an idea of his immense talent, which left us all breathless.  And enjoy the gorgeous painting by my dear friend and neighbor, Marcia Holmes, that graces our mantle, entitled "Reflective Oak." God bless!

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