What is the state of your economy?

I keep hearing about the cost of food and gas going up and I have been inclined to think that rumor to be true by looking at the price of milk. Milk being your primary barometer of the state of the economy is not entirely unreasonable if you consume around twenty gallons of milk a month. Then it is the best indicator of the state of your economy.
Since the "good deal" price of milk jumped from $2.50 to $3.08 recently, with the regular price hovering just above $4.00, I began to be suspicious about the accuracy of our monthly projections for The Budget.
So we fell down The Budget rabbit hole this afternoon. I felt a little bit like Alice herself...crying one minute, rejoicing the next, seeing some things shrink and others grow very large, looking for that darn key that is going to open the door to the beautiful garden. The one that you could never afford.
Sigh.
As I sat there wrestling with this puzzle (that I'm pretty sure is missing some pieces) I started to feel bad for myself and my pitiful plight. Which, I assure you, is neither pitiful nor a plight. But there I was on the porch with The Impossible Budget in hand when Rosie walked up to me and handed me a plastic grocery bag and urged me to "open the present."
Great, I thought miserably, this is what my life is going to be from now on...my gifts are going to come wrapped in plastic bags. Sad but true.
But it doesn't matter what it's wrapped in...it's what's inside that counts, the hallmark card in my head responded.
I hopefully unwrapped the plastic bag to discover...another plastic bag. I unwrapped that bag to discover...that the 2nd bag was the gift.
So, the moral of the story is...if you think it's bad it could always be worse.


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More about Corapi...and Kresta :)

Well, this is a little awkward and funny, no?

http://krestaintheafternoon.blogspot.com/

I will say this...in THEORY I respect a falsely accused priest who stands up for himself.

In REALITY I respect my dad and his gut, opinions, and arguments. I actually know the man and his integrity and intelligence in this case, a bonus for me.

As events continue to unfold and the nature of this very confusing situation becomes clear I contend that more waiting would have been prudent. Even if Corapi is guilty...and he very well may be...I wish that bloggers would have waited a few more days to come out with their opinion pieces. After Corapi's second announcement things are already clearer. The man is angry. If he is guilty of manipulating the system then more evidence of this will become stronger as he reveals more of his hand. If we waited just a few more days then it wouldn't look like assumptions, it would look like arguments.

That being said, I do not lump my dad in with the likes of the others...he waited longer and cited more actual arguments then the others. He exercised more prudence. And in the midst of the 24 hour news culture waiting is simply not the name of the game.

Thankfully for me, what I say and write really doesn't matter AT ALL. The only people reading this are my friends who I assume always take my opinions with a grain of salt. I do not shape the public argument or define the terms...thank goodness. It's a burdensome responsibility and I'm so glad that I can trust the goodness, thoroughness and thoughtfulness of one of the men who does shoulder part of that burden.

My idea of prudence (which I'm not giving up on, by the way) is another's idea of negligence.

On Corapi...let us be reasonable and kind

The following article is from the Bishop of Corpus Christi, the one cited in Corapi's announcement. Thanks to him for quelling the slander. Give Corapi time to show what he is actually going to do...stop preemptively accusing him of abandoning the priesthood. Silence in the face of slander and libel is not always the right approach. Christ was silent...sometimes. Other times he told everyone exactly who he was. Corapi could have discerned that the best thing for the Church

was for him to NOT take this lying down.

He knows the process is flawed. We know the process is flawed. Most clergy in this country know the process is flawed. Perhaps, hopefully, Corapi's making it more of a public issue will spur the bishops on to fixing it. There is truth to the old adage, all it takes for evil to prevail is for good people to stand by and do nothing.

Silence or defense could have been the correct approach for him. But unless you were a fly on the wall of Corapi's conversation with the Lord then perhaps you should be the silent one. Furthering the slander that this woman is possibly causing is harmful at worse and at best it is presumptuous.

I am grateful to the Bishop of Corpus Christi for this article and I hope it makes some of these Catholic bloggers take a step back and publicly take responsibility for their part in sullying the name of a man who has not been, as yet, convicted of anything.

http://abyssum.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/a-few-thoughts-on-father-corapis-announcement-yesterday/