Tithing on Social Media? Well, as a strategy for the new evangelization, it might get you involved...

My latest offering at Patheos discusses the new evangelization, the generosity of God, and our response to it. How did I come to this idea of tithing on our usage of social media? Simple. It's a a matter of stewardship... and putting our resources at the service of the new evangelization.

Here's a snippet...

There’s an old joke that talks about the angels questioning Jesus about the worldwide evangelization  plan after his return to heaven following the Ascension: 

Angel: So, Jesus, you’ve just returned to heaven as the victorious Lord of Glory, King of Heaven and Earth, what’s your plan for spreading the news of salvation to the whole world? 

Jesus: Well, you see those folks down there on earth -- Peter, James, John, and the rest of my disciples? 

Angel: Yes… 

Jesus: I told them to tell everyone. 

Angel: That’s the plan? 

Jesus: That’s it. 

As it was then, so it is now. The plan for evangelization still resides with us, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. 

And all of us who are baptized into the Church, have been baptized into the Church’s mission, which is our mission too. The call to be evangelizers is at once corporate and personal.  Some are called to bring the news of salvation to foreign lands. Most are called to bring it to our next-door neighbor -- or, to our next Facebook status.

Read it all. 

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This makes me think... about how well I'm using Twitter... oh, and so much more, really.

Among Women ReadHER 11.19.11

Among Women ReadHer

11.19.11

Lesson One in Prayer
By Dr. Peter Kreeft at The Integrated Life
This is the first installment in a larger series. Definitely worth a read, and there is a recorded talk (podcast) with Kreeft also at this link.

Making Room
By Simcha Fisher at her blog at the National Catholic Register
Writer lesson one: write what you know. This is a home run. For parents, for families, for advent.

The Calm Before The Storm

By William O'Leary of Catechists in the Third Millennium

The calm before the Christmas "storm" that is... three ways to make your Advent more meaningful... and consider clicking through to the article mentioned at the end of #3. (It is an archived piece by Mary Beth Bonacci and well worth the trouble.) Need more Advent prep help?  Check out this week's AW 116 with Sarah Reinhard with ideas for lowering the stress levels.

Teen Girls Twice as Likely as Boys to Tweet
By eMarketer
Not surprised. Other stats listed too. (One of my son's once complained about a former girlfriend who chronically texted him with suffocating frequency.) 


The Catechism Demystified
By Julie Davis at Happy Catholic
Simple, direct, with illustrations. Go see. Julie is a wise and wonderful Catholic blogger and podcaster; hear a delight and fun conversation about her Happy Catholic book on AW 99, or find her conversion story and blog story on AW 49.

The King's Speech
Posted by Rocco Palmo at Whispers in the Loggia
A transcription of Archbishop Timothy Dolan's opening speech at the Plenary meeting of the US Catholic Conference of Bishops. (+Dolan is the president.) For me the speech captures the heart and mission of the new evangelization.


Mississippi Didn't Need Personhood Amendment to Ban Abortion
By Steven Ertelt on LifeSite News
I still think we need discussions about personhood as part of the overall discussion regarding the dignity of the human person. However, having personal discussions about this issue, and the necessity for specificity of language regarding the law are two different things. I think the legal counsel on this --from a Catholic standpoint -- was that this was not the legal battle that would help end abortion in Mississippi, and therefore it did not garner the support from the major Catholic voices in the public square, most specifically the US Catholic Bishops, among others. Honestly, I should have done my homework better on that score; I think I was a bit too quick in my own support of it, as I saw supporting it as a way of standing with other Christians (non-Catholics that I know) in trying to promote a culture of life. In retrospect, I need to take the wider long term view. 


Christ the King and the 'Net Positive
By Elizabeth Scalia at her Tuesday column on First Things
You never know who is listening, watching or reading.


How to Restore a Culture in One Easy Step
By Joe Carter at First Things
Yes, another selection from First Things, but worth it! You know I always try to promote bible reading and bible study... Carter makes a case for it as we've witnessed the shift away from a once-Judeo-Christian ethic that figured prominently in recent centuries and has been abandoned in our secular age.


Buying Locally Catholic
By Sarah Reinhard at SnoringScholar.com
Good advice. Try this as you prepare for the Christmas holidays. And hey -- if you're preparing for Advent, not to be redundant, but take a listen to Sarah Reinhard's appearance on the latest episode of Among Women! 

Wasted for Love
By Sr. Lisa Marie at Virtuous Pla.net
A look at discerning God's will in life and in our vocations.

Bishops Add 2 New Memorials to our Liturgical Calendar
By Deacon Greg Kandra at The Deacon's Bench
And the two are 1) Oct. 22 for Blessed John Paul II and 2) Jan. 23 Blessed Marianne Cope (who we recently profiled on AW 115.)


And again, thanks to The Deacon, who posted this totally amazing TED talk (about 10 minutes) complete with video on new technologies that see inside the body -- a short film from conception to birth -- splendidly done.

And speaking of videos, Matt Warner at National Catholic Register posted 10 short previews of all the films in the landmark Catholicism series produced by Fr. Robert Barron. 

Among Women ReadHER 11. 12. 11... war on women, grateful tweets, internet's influence & more

Among Women ReadHer

11.12.11

What I Am Never Going to Tell You
By Elizabeth Foss at her blog, In the Heart of my Home.
This is such an important post by a very wise mother, Elizabeth Foss: even "great" parenting does not guarantee that our children will live lives that reflect our faith and values. (My two cents: Loving children despite their free will is the toughest job parents face... Witness the forgiving father in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Some may one day return to a Christian walk, and some may not.)

The Real War on Women
By Kathryn Jean Lopez
No nonsense, straight talk. Lopez never preaches. Just states it very plainly.


The Personhood Initiative: Mississippi Voters Fail A Reality Check
By Phil Lawler on CatholicCulture.org
We need more discussion on the subject of personhood as a path to promoting the culture of life.


All That We Behold is Full of Blessing -- Wm. Wordsworth
By Maria Johnson
I've been a #gratefultweeter, following the lead of folks like Maria and @MattSwaim... I recommend #gratefultweeting... it can be a form of evangelism, offering a smile rather than a frown to twitter news feeds. There's another take on this, here.


Parents: Beware the Dangers of Peer Orientation
By Jennifer Fulwiler
This subject really resonates with me. As a former youth minister (in the years before my children came) it became very clear to me that parents needed to be the molders and shapers of conscience and perspective, and it their absence, other voices would fill the vacuum. (I write a little bit on the shaping of conscience in a child, this week at Catholic Mom.)


Virtually Pleasuring Ourselves Out of Existence
By Betty Duffy at Patheos
Very astute and challenging about the power of the internet's addictive pull. 


Fr Robert Barron discusses the new translation of the Roman Missal... (under 15 minutes.)

The F.U.N. Quotient - tweet edition

The names and identities of the twitter-ers have been deleted, to protect the innocent, and the guilty.


Take a look at trending topics and you'll realize why they have to write "do not eat" on dry silica packets.

If you're in Los Angeles and lost your wallet near the Starbucks on Melrose I found your wallet but not the $58 inside it.


Billion dollar idea: Make a prescription drug that gets rid of the side effects of all of the other prescription drugs.


I don't trust a taxi cab that has more than two air fresheners.


Speaking from experience, No More Tears shampoo does not work as advertised if you drop the bottle on a baby's face.


Roman numerals. What are they good IV?

If you know how many calories are in your donut, you're not eating it right.


We get about 25 screaming 5 yr old little girls together to scream nonstop at terrorists, BOOM, we win the War on Terror!

"I wish I could answer phone calls with my Walkman." -Steve Jobs in the 80's


"I just launched a new fragrance!" - fun way to announce a fart

I remember when social networking was something that happened in person. How awkward.


I don't care what the expiration date says, I have to smell it.

The F.U.N Quotient: Coke & Peanuts, or, that silly Catholic drinking game

Sometimes if it takes too long to explain it, you should probably just  leave it alone. But such random silliness rarely enters this blog, save on Fridays, so here goes...

Okay, I read a lot of blogs. And one day last fall I was reading Maria Johnson's post about Coke and Peanuts...  Seems that this was some kind of quirky Southern refreshment that Maria had enjoyed as a kid.

Well, I had read the same tweet that Maria refers to about Coke consumption from those classic bottles, but my memories were of Coke sans peanuts... so I put a little musing of my own in my pal's  combox...

Later that day on Twitter, Maria (aka @bego) invites the Twitterverse to join her in some coke and peanuts... and then it seems discussion rose up among Maria and Sarah Vabulas, (aka @CatholicDrinkie) (and whose inimitable blog is, well, The Catholic Drinkie, as in a send up to the Catholic Foodie. For more history on that go here).  as to the ritual consumption of Coke and peanuts in the South...  Sarah, a proper Southern young lady had never tried it. As you can tell from my comment above, neither had I. (But then again, I suffer from the liability of being born a Yankee, accordin' to my Southern pals, and I missed exposure to certain Southern comfort foods.)

Are you with me so far? I didn't think so. 

So it gets weirder, when in the course of twittering about same, the subject of a food dare comes up innocently.  

And hey, I like Coke. And peanuts. And its a lot tamer and lamer than jello shots or other crazy drinking games that one might be dared to try. (Note I'm much older and wiser these days.) So, no harm done. Sounds good for a giggle. 

Sarah is telling me we oughta do this drink-off on Skype given my northern clime and her southern location, and Maria, the instigator of it all, simply shakes her head at both of us. 

Meanwhile, Sarah tweets and brings @JenniferWillits into the loop, another cool Southern gal, who apparently had never imbibed the beloved C&P either...

A day or two later. I go shopping for Coke, just to see if I can find those glass bottles... and the legendary Lance's peanuts. Alas, the Coke is found but the Lance's were not. 

I report my findings to Maria, and mentally cross the Coke and peanuts escapade off my to do list. Figuring I would save it for some future day when I might  saving perchance one day take a trip down south. 

Days after the Twitter dare, I enter my winter hermitage --being laid up from surgery on my ankle and not going anywhere for 12 long weeks due to my cast, crutches, and much snow and ice...

Maria keeps sending me little get-well gifts by mail during my confinement, as the New England snow continues to fall. And then one day, a package arrives at my front door... with, among other things,  packages of Lance's peanuts.

And then it was game on... 

(Is this silly? Absolutely! Was this fun? Well for us it was for us!) (Especially if you consider F.U.N. to be Frequent Unbridled Nonsense.)

So just for fun... step into this little inside joke with us, and enjoy this little send up to Coke & Peanuts... 

Here's my tribute...

And yes, the successive chugs led to a certain amount of dribbling on my white hoodie... oh, and I couldn't help adding the Cuban-esque soundtrack for my Cuban-born pal, Maria.

Now here comes "the reply", or "The Retort"  I got from Maria, Sarah, & Jennifer. Oh, and Maria's daughter amazing college-aged daughter, Christy, who went along for the ride too... but somehow I think they had enjoyed a wee bit more than C&P, since they made this video on St. Patty's Day.

Oh, the taste-testing panel from left to right: Christy, Jennifer, and Sarah...

In the aftermath, I saw this tweet from Sarah:

Amazing women, indeed. 

Note well: One fine day, when I get down to Atlanta, I'll be the one with the martini, as I hand the C&P back to @bego. I think she still owes us one more memory.