Is My Phylactery Showing?

Steve Dillard is asking for prayers for his wife. She's been suffering from a stomach virus, exacerbated by Addison's Disease. It sounds like an ugly combination. So please keep Krista Dillard in your prayers.

If you watched any of the current home-remodeling shows on cable, you've probably witnessed excesses of the "me" generation. These shows explore some of the lengths to which people go to create heavens of their havens or to turn their homes into "escapes." I had a chance to see one such home up close recently. What struck me is not only what the owner chose to accentuate, but she left out.

The interior was something else—mostly Tuscan with a few touches of Americana.

I'm reading Jaroslav Pelikan's Reformation of Church and Dogma, volume 4 of The Christian Tradition. I can empathize completely with Luther's disgust at the sale and abuse of indulgences, and it's clear to me that he started off with genuinely good intentions. However, where Luther begins and where others go with his thought, I can only see a tendency to give less and claim more, to water down the true Gospel and replace it with a wordly gospel.

My lovely wife susprised me with a perfectly appropriate Father's Day gift: Trogdor shirts from Homestar Runner.

Here's the t-shirt:

And here's the polo:

And if you don't know what TROGDOR is, see this.

My dad is in surgery today for a small prostate issue. Please keep him in your prayers.

**UPDATE: I'll have to seek Julie D's intercession more often. Doc is recovering nicely. He's 70 and swears that no man in his family has lived past that age. I'm banking on proving him wrong. Nonetheless, whenever these sorts of things come up, I always think it's safest to put the matter in God's hands.

It looks like the USCCB did the right thing. It would be interesting to see how everyone voted.

Steve at Speculative Catholic is giving away a concept for a parody: a musical based on the Council of Nicea using melodies from Hair.

I was showing my wife Stephen Colbert's liturgical dance clip when I came upon this Ask a Ninja clip explaining podcasting.

It makes a whole lot more sense now.

Matt Whyndham posted a question in my combox that I think needs more attention than I can give it in a combox response. I had noted my current struggle with martial arts practice in two posts, particularly when the practice seems to delve into quasi-spiritual disciplines or even simple meditation techniques.

Mike Aquilina has another great post, this time on the debt that the Catholic Church owes to Africa. At this rate, I might simply need to build in a permanent RSS feed so his post titles will show up in my sidebar.