Coucoumellisms

Fish, chips and beer... I love Fridays... :)

An excellent glass of wine (and an occasion to go with it)

Which is not to say that there can not be times when it is.  But that is not essentially what it is. Marriage means living with another person, and living with another person is a constant challenge to better yourself.  Because when you don't live with a person, things you say or do, or don't say or do, and vice versa, don't matter at the end of the day, but when you do live with a person, everything matters. Marriage is a wake-up call.  The perfect partner does not exist, no matter how "made-in-Heaven" s/he may seem at the start.  Only one Being is perfect, and if you are looking for perfection, I suggest you become a hermit and spend the rest of your days in a cave, communing with God and nature. Not your vocation?  Not surprising, since most people need to be challenged in their path to sainthood. This isn't to say that I do not believe in the idea of soul mates.  I do believe soul mates exist.  I do not think that every one meet...

I have been reading Heaven's Song  (Sexual Love as it was Meant to Be) from Christopher West. In chapter three, he quotes from the Song of Songs: "A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a garden closed, a fountain sealed" (4:12).  Then, a little further on, he says : "As we seek to enter the truth expressed by this language, it would be wise to "take off our shoes," for this is holy ground. Indeed, if we follow John Paul into the depth of this mystery we will find ourselves "behind the veil," having mystically entered the innermost sanctuary of God's dwelling place - the "holy of holies." I haven't read the rest yet, and I don't know if the book is going to even take the same line of thought, but the truly amazing thing (to me) is that I wrote a poem a few years ago, essentially using the exact same imagery and metaphor. It basically asks "If I let you in (to that garden) would you find the flowers r...

Love notes

Let nothing trouble you  Let nothing frighten you  Everything passes  God never changes  Patience obtains all  Whoever has God wants for nothing  God alone is enough. St Teresa of Avila I wish I had faith like that.  Maybe if I spent my whole life in prayer, God would be enough. I know everything passes, I've been through enough things to know that eventually, they pass. I'm not sure about patience.  I think that, at some point, you have to stir up trouble to make things happen, but I'm guessing that's not what she means by patience in this case.

I was listening to Father Barron's Catholicism Series last night, and he mentioned something that stuck with me.  He said something about the difference between Christians (and people from certain other religions) and the secular world, is often the difference between knowing we are sinners and not knowing it. Someone who knows he is a sinner and knows he needs to ask forgiveness no matter how hard it is, will be quite different and react quite differently from someone who would rather ignore the fact that they are a sinner. As a parent, it is easy for me to get mad at my kids and blame them when things don't go as planned, even if it isn't entirely their fault.  It's not easy to let go of pride and say I'm sorry.  I think it's even harder when you don't even believe in sin or God, or that we are all sinners who need forgiveness. I have seen two dear friends go through their spouse cheating on them in recent years, and I have a theory:  face...

Babies laughing :) It is impossible not to laugh along with him.  Try it.  I dare you.

I entered the dark, empty chapel this evening and instantly I felt HIS presence.  That presence that makes you want to go down on one knee and stay there. I found my way to a bench and knelt there and prayed.  I could have stayed there for hours, in the calm and silence, with God. Something has snapped inside of me.  I think a ball has been set into motion.  I see seemingly totally unrelated events suddenly coming together.  I'm not sure what direction the ball is rolling in, but of this I am certain, something is going to change. For the first time, I have seriously considered the unthinkable, and what I thought unthinkable suddenly seems not only possible but perhaps part of God's plan.  That remains to be seen.  I do know this, in order to keep the ball rolling, there are two tasks I must accomplish first.  One of them is to send my book to publishers.  The other is to find a spiritual director. Oh God, it was so good to be in Yo...

Prayer is not an "I ask, you give" thing. God is not Santa Claus.  If you pray once a year, and only if you need something, don't expect to get it.  You probably won't.  Unless of course, God sees that you would really get some good from it.  You may eventually get it, you may not. God may have something better in store.  He may also be waiting for you to grow up. People who pray all the time, who trust God to give what is needed and open other doors if one is closed, and not just when they need something, often receive answers to their prayers.  This does not mean that nothing bad ever happens to them, it means God works around the bad. Prayer is not a monologue. It is a dialogue.  Prayer, at first, feels like a monologue.  That's because you have to learn the language of the soul.  The soul communicates without sound or sight.  You won't hear the answers to your prayers with your ears.  You will feel them.  You will ...

"To a great extent the level of any civilization is the level of all its womanhood. When a man loves a woman, he has to become worthy of her. The higher her virtue, the more noble her character, the more devoted she is to truth, justice and goodness, the more a man has to aspire to be worthy of her. The history of civilization could actually be written in terms of the level of its women." Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen This is where I failed, some odd twenty years ago. To be fair, that's the woman I wanted to be.  I was too trusting, naive and lacking in self-confidence and assurance to follow through. Thankfully, it's never too late to turn one's life around, even it is too late for missed opportunities.

I love Hallowe'en.  I dress up every year and take the hobbits trick-or-treating.  I think Hallowe'en is just as much for adults as it is for kids (minus the candy). But WHAT is up with Hallowe'en costumes for women?  It doesn't matter what you wish to dress up as on Hallowe'en there is a skimpy woman's costume for that at the store.  For some strange reason, little girls can still be princesses and yes, even vampires, and the costumes are not skimpy.  But get into adult sizes, and suddenly the costume makers have either run out of material or got the measurements wrong for the women's costumes.  Just the women's costumes, for some reason the men's costumes are fine. Who designs these things anyway?  Most likely men.  But they wouldn't, if women weren't BUYING them. Well women, we don't have to buy them.  Hallowe'en is supposed to be about having fun, not about who can be the most trashy. My daughter wanted to be a war...