Euthanasia has become a leading issue in the French presidential election: President Nicolas Sarkozy opposes its legalization, while François Hollande, a Socialist, supports it.

Writing in L?Osservatore Romano, Ferdinando Cancelli comments on the growing support for euthanasia in France and calls for more widespread training in palliative care as a ?third way? between ?the disproportion of treatments and the false solution of euthanasia.?

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CatholicWorldNewsFeatureStories/~3/rqo52IRnXAY/index.cfm

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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) ? San Francisco Giants right-hander Ryan Vogelsong strained his back earlier this month while lifting weights and said Sunday he will miss at least the first 10 days of spring training workouts while he recovers.

The pitcher realizes it?s worth being cautious at this stage so that he?s healthy for the long haul.

?It?s not too bad but we want to make sure we?re cautious,? Vogelsong said before Giants pitchers and catchers went through their first workout at Scottsdale Stadium. ?I?d say probably, cautious side, 10 days maybe just to make sure I?m feeling good and don?t go out there and try to throw and tweak it again and come back in here. We?re just going to go really conservative right now.?

Vogelsong, who became an unlikely All-Star last year in a comeback season, said he was squatting on a balance ball with 70-pound dumbbells ? weights he had used all winter ? on Feb. 7 when he got hurt.

?Just a regular workout, trying to do a little bit too much weight wise,? he said. ?Right now, we want to make sure I?m 100 percent ready to go before I go out there and try to start throwing and running around again.?

Last month, Vogelsong received an $8.3 million, two-year contract to give him some job security. The 34-year-old Vogelsong set a career high for wins last season while going 13-7 with a 2.71 ERA in 30 games and 28 starts.

All-Star closer Brian Wilson, who didn?t pitch down the stretch last season because of an elbow injury, is eager to get going ? and he?s set to throw another bullpen Monday. He isn?t expected in games until the second week.

Wilson spoke little about the injury late in 2011, when the Giants failed to reach the playoffs after winning the World Series a year earlier.

?Maybe other people were frustrated but I certainly wasn?t frustrated. It?s nothing I could have controlled. I?m never going to be frustrated with anything,? Wilson said Sunday. ?I don?t ask for days off. I don?t complain about anything. I don?t ask for a timeout for a breather. I ask to throw the ball, get three outs. I can do that until I die.?

Wilson ? the majors saves leader in 2010 with 48 ? went 6-4 with a 3.11 ERA and 36 saves in 57 outings last year.

?I feel great. I felt good the whole time, it?s just I was just limited back then,? he said. ?I would have thrown but I was told I couldn?t throw. I think anybody who takes six months off, it?s good. It gave it enough time to heal. Ready to rock.?

Tags: Arizona, Baseball, JANIE McCAULEY, Men’s sports, North America, Professional baseball, Sports, United States

This entry was posted on February 19, 2012, 12:34 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ArtesiaNews/~3/OTGqmdy5kIU/

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We’ve made it through two weeks, and already I can’t believe how much I have learned!  I hope you are all keeping up with your reading and homework.  If you get behind, it is super easy to do two studies in one day if needed.

Today we’ll head over to Natalie’s place at Mommy on Fire for her Week 2 discussion. I’ll meet you over there!

Source: http://www.heartandsoulreflections.com/2012/02/james-mercy-triumphs-week-2.html

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Recently (in private e-mails) I have been getting some heat from some Neo-Reformed friends who feel I have either not been fair or too critical of Neo-Reformed theology on this blog. On other hand, some members of the committed Neo-Reformed have engaged me (again via private e-mail)  letting me know they appreciate my insights and dialogue. They have been encouraging. All this to say, I think dialogue between Neo-Reformed folks and Neo-Anabaptist Evangelical Missional people like me would be a very good thing. And I have been convicted of not doing enough to move us in this direction.

This is why I was so glad (even freaked out a bit) when my Canadian bro Darryl Dash (otherwise know as ?Triple D? by another Canadian bro because he as a recent Doctor of Ministry degree) put this list of questions before me and asked me to respond for his blog. I sense a good impulse here. Dialogue together for the Kingdom. So at the risk of losing my reputation as a grumpy Neo-Anabaptist (evangelical), I answered these questions and I post them here. Darryl will be posting them on his blog as well here! I have hopes this will lead to further discussions of this kind. Way to go Darryl!!

1. There seems to have been a resurgence of the Neo-Reformed and Anabaptists at the same time. It?s almost like they?re parallel movements. What?s behind that?

If you ask me, this has to do with the cultural turning point facing the North American church. There?s a unhinging of sorts happening in N. American culture where the larger culture is becoming unhinged from the Christian moorings of its past. One can easily see this happening in Canada, Europe and the northern United States. And so now we, here in N. America, find ourselves in a ?mission field.? We are forced to ask the question, how do we engage this newly secularized, even antagonistic-to-the-gospel culture? How can we be faithful to God?s Mission in Jesus Christ? In my opinion, the rise of Neo-Reformed and Neo-Anabaptists comes from responding to this cultural shift.  They can be interpreted as two parallel movements responding to this shift.

So I would say the ?Neo-Reformed? group has responded to this shift by pushing for a purifying of the gospel. We?ve lost our way. We?ve given away the proclamation of the gospel in order to be relevant. And the church has declined. We need to restate it clearly and find ways to be present in that truth in our culture. This is a revival of past protestant orthodoxy (for some this is more towards Puritan thought than the Majesterial Reformation) for sure but it is more than that. It is an attempt to bridge that orthodoxy with a new sense of mission in the N American context.

In regards to the Neo-Anabaptists, I would say this group has responded by stressing a renewal of the embodiment of the gospel in local contexts. Here, we need to pay attention to the ?witness? of the gospel in the rhythms of our everyday lives. There is a push to figure out traditional Anabaptist themes for today: themes such as a.) Community together for God?s Mission, b.) Discipleship, c.) the subversive yet non-coercive ways of service, reconciliation, and peacemaking in the neighborhood. The gospel is defined here more broadly than for many Neo-Reformed? think Scot McKnight or N. T. Wright. We Anabaptists, I suggest, are more happy to accept the post-Christendom state of things. This however requires new modes of cultural engagement, listening, postures of humility. This is not the sectarian Anabaptism of times past.

So these are two different responses to the new cultural conditions in the West.

2. What can Anabaptists learn from the Neo-Reformed?

In my opinion, the strength of the Reformed movement is the seriousness with which they take the Scriptures, doctrine and belief. They push us to think about uncomfortable subjects like hell, the seriousness of sin, eternity and even the nature of the Bible?s authority. In my opinion these issues are extremely important for the new journey of faithfulness we are on. They should not be sloughed off. I might also add that the renewed focus on preaching and God?s grace is important as well. Although I don?t agree with many of my Neo-Reformed friends, I have learned a lot from them on all these things. Think Tim Keller and some things I?ve learned about preaching. Think John Piper and the nature of desire being shaped before God in worship. That?s good stuff.

3. What can the Neo-Reformed learn from Anabaptists?

Too many to mention (haha sorry ). But seriously, Neo-Anabaptism brings with it a serious critique and understanding about the ways the church aligns itself with power structures in society to therefore dilute and even neuter the gospel. We the church thereby become too easily co?opted by society instead of a transforming agent. I think the Neo-Reformed folks don?t get how much of their theology depends upon social constructs that don?t exist anymore for large parts of North America (could I have said that in an any more tactful manner?). I think Neo-Anabaptism pushes for integrity in our forms of gathering and being a people in the world for the gospel. Too much of Reformed ecclesiology is stuck in Geneva (could I have said that any less tactfully?). We need to think through a missional ecclesiology that takes seriously that the church is a witness to the Kingdom of God in Christ. The church is a sign to the world of where God is taking the rest of the world: the consummation of His Kingdom in Christ. This takes a way of being both in the world but as sent ones in the world. I could go on, but I might just write a book.

4. If you were invited to speak at a conference put on by The Gospel Coalition, what would you say to that group?

I would expand on questions 2.) and 3.) above and then have an altar call .

5. You live in Chicago, yet you seem to be a Canadian at heart. What made you so interested in Canada?

I grew up in Hamilton Ontario. I missed being born in Owen Sound, Ontario by 2 months! (when my parents moved to the states for 6 years) So that means I was conceived a Canadian! My grandfather founded the C&MA church in Ottawa and then ministered in Winnipeg. So I have a rich rich ancesteral Canadian heritage in my family. Despite the fact that I have now lived the majority of my life in the U.S., I am not always comfortable here.  The Empire mentality, the power posture of evangelicalism makes me ache. So my Canadian heritage is a gift because it gives me a unique perspective. And it also enables me to go visit all my friends in Canada on vacation every summer, hang in a Tim Horton?s and think hockey in the off season.

???

OK, that?s the interview! What do you think about the future of Neo-Reformed/Neo-Anabaptist dialogue? What would be first steps? Is this possible? What would be the hurdles? And for the sake of promoting dialogue, I will not reveal what the image in this post refers to!

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/reclaimingthemission/go/~3/s6FgcPedmvQ/

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A Missouri Senate Committee has passed and sent to the full Senate a bill which would protect the conscience rights of Missouri citizens, employers and insurance companies from the effects of the Obama administration?s sterilization, abortifacient and contraceptive mandate.

SB 749 by Senator John Lamping (R-Clayton) has been fast tracked and could be up for consideration as early as Monday. The bill?s summary reads, in part:

This act provides that no employee or any other person, employer, health plan provider or sponsor, health care provider or any other entity shall be compelled to obtain coverage for or provide coverage for abortion, contraception, or sterilization in a health plan if such items or procedures are contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of such employee, health care plan, provider or sponsor, or any other entity or person. No such employee, health care plan, provider or sponsor, or any other entity or person shall be discriminated against by any governmental entity, public official, or entity acting in a governmental capacity for failing to obtain or provide such coverage because of such religious beliefs or moral convictions of such employee, health care plan, provider or sponsor, or any other entity or person.

The bill further directs the State Attorney General to bring action in state or federal court is any of its provisions are threatened or violated. Below is the Missouri Catholic Conference analysis of the bill and the HHS Mandate situation in general (Don?t miss the action item at the bottom):

The Missouri Senate is moving swiftly to respond to the Obama Administration’s recent edict that employers, including the Catholic Church, provide health coverage for contraceptives, sterilization procedures and abortion drugs. SB 749, sponsored by Senator John Lamping (R-Clayton), won committee approval Tuesday and is fast-tracked and may be debated next week by the full Senate. (Click here to see the Fox 2 News video.)

SB 749 would place in state law a clear prohibition on government forcing employers, including the Catholic Church, to pay for contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion drugs. The bill would also ensure that individuals would not be forced to purchase health plans that include these items if they object to them on moral or religious grounds.

WHY STATE ACTION MUST BE A PRIORITY

Congress has so far failed to enact revisions to the federal health care law (The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) that will protect rights of conscience and religious liberty. Leaders in the U.S. Senate in particular have stymied efforts to amend the law.

It is becoming increasingly clear that change will only come when there is a groundswell of protest from citizens. And that is most effectively mobilized at the state level. State officials are closer to the people and more responsive to their concerns.

The MCC has great hope that the Missouri General Assembly will pass SB 749. If Governor Nixon then signs the bill into law, this will send a powerful message to Congress that events are leaving them behind and they need to act.

WHY OBAMA’S “ACCOMMODATION” FAILS TO PROTECT RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Last Friday President Obama announced a so-called “accommodation” on a rule issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that required all employers, including the Catholic Church, to pay for contraceptives, sterilization procedures and abortion drugs. This “accommodation” requires insurance companies offering health plans to religious organizations to separately provide free coverage to the employees for contraceptives, sterilization and abortion drugs. 

In fact, insurance companies are not going to offer this coverage for free. Someone is going to pay for it and that someone is the religious employer. The religious employer will pay a higher premium and thereby subsidize the use of these products that violate their religious and moral tenets. And religious employers that self-insure, that is, don’t buy their health insurance on the open market, will have to pay for and provide contraceptives, sterilization and abortion drugs in the health plans they offer to their employees.

The “accommodation” also does not offer a private (non-Church) employer the option to refuse to pay for abortion drugs etc if they have moral or religious objections. Individuals (employees) will also be forced to pay through premiums for health plans that include abortion drugs etc, even if they don’t use them or if they object for moral or religious reasons.

DEEPLY FLAWED PROCESS, DEEPLY FLAWED LAW

This deeply flawed “accommodation” has not been issued as a revised rule. That rule will not be issued until after the election. People are being asked to just trust that the President will take care of the problem, somehow, later. It’s a sad day when our religious liberties depend upon some edict from the White House.

We got to this point because Congress, when they wrote the new health care law, failed to include provisions protecting rights of conscience and religious liberty. Instead, the law ceded broad authority to HHS to write rules and HHS proceeded to define the “preventive services” that employers must offer to include contraceptives, sterilization procedures and abortion drugs.

If we have learned anything in recent weeks, it is that we should not trust our religious liberties to federal regulators. Without clear guidance from the new federal health care law, regulators proceeded to write a rule that violates the moral and religious convictions of Americans.

IT’S ABOUT RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Opponents (and much of the media) are trying to characterize this issue as one about birth control. But people get it: this is about religious liberties. Click here to view a short video prepared by the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

1. Contact your state senator today.
2. Forward this email alert to family, friends and others.
3. Pray for wisdom and understanding by all our Missouri Senators.
4. Report back to the MCC on what your senator is saying.

THE MESSAGE/TALKING POINTS

• Please don’t delay in protecting our religious freedoms; pass SB 749.

• The President’s so-called accommodation is flawed (cite reasons above).

• Missouri should send a message to Congress today; don’t delay in protecting our religious freedoms.

• Government should not force churches or private employers to pay for abortion drugs or other things they morally object to.

• Individuals should not be forced to pay for health plans that include abortion drugs.

• It’s about religious liberty; pass SB 749.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheCatholicKeyBlog/~3/di4nePs7BD4/missouri-moves-to-repeal-hhs-mandate.html

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Picture this fictional, yet accurate, scenerio: It?s 1959, and St. Procopius Catholic School is flourishing. There are two of every grade and 18 religious sisters who serve the students. Sister Mary Pius has recently told all the eighth-grade boys that God may be calling them to the priesthood, and six of her girls are going out to the motherhouse in the spring to talk about joining the order after high school. Sister Walburga is getting the seventh graders ready to start the algebra textbook. Sister Mary Regina is teaching the second graders on how to receive Holy Communion (using Necco wafers). Father Keller is helping the fifth-grade servers learn the Latin responses. And the rest of the student body devoutly believes that Ora pro nobis is really ?O, rubber noses.? This Catholic parish and school have created a loving community that immerses over 900 families in their faith. It is their whole world.

Flash forward 50 years to St. Procopius: There are 306 students in the school, and about 45 percent are Catholic. The religious sisters have all retired and lay men and women teach now. St. Procopius is still an exceptional academic school. But, to many, it appears to be a private school that happens to be Catholic rather than a Catholic school that happens to be private. Families from outside the parish send their children there for an excellent education, and faith is secondary.

So where does that leave us, the hope-filled faithful, who want our memories of the past to be the vision of the future?

I believe we need to see Catholic schools for what they were originally intended to be: a playing field for evangelization. Our grandparents invested in these schools because they believed that fertile ground was necessary for planting the seeds of faith.

We have an amazing opportunity to bring whole families back to the practice of faith if we play our cards right. In my years as a Catholic educator, nothing has been more rewarding than seeing parents and their children baptized at the Easter Vigil because a teacher, principal, or DRE invited them to become Catholic. There is no finer moment for me than welcoming a newly baptized student back to that first school Mass after Easter and seeing him or her receive Eucharist with the rest of the student body. For you see, Catholic schools are not only about forming minds and bodies. We are there to form souls, and that makes all the difference. Our grandparents knew it, lived it, and literally bet their last bottom dollar on it.

Instead of getting lost in things of the past, let?s begin something new: Catholic schools where the faculty is passionate about their Catholic faith and teach the gospel in everything they do; school families who attend the parish Mass on Sunday and know that school and parish go hand in hand; students who pray and live faith in every aspect of their lives. The vision and the mission have not changed in 50 years. God is beginning something new. God is asking you and me to reach out and evangelize the unchurched in our Catholic schools. We have a marvelous opportunity to help the Kingdom come.

********
Photo: Karen Roach/PhotoXpress
Permission to reprint courtesy of The Catholic Telegraph

About the Author

Jeanne Hunt

Jeanne Hunt is a Director for Product Development at St. Anthony Messenger Press. She is a well known speaker and author on topics of women?s spirituality, marriage and family life. Her latest book is “Celebrating Saints and Seasons.”

Source: http://blog.americancatholic.org/2012/02/bringing-the-basics-back-to-catholic-schools/

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An unfortunate headline in the Kansas City Star missed the ?DO NOT?. To be fair, reporters typically don?t headline their stories, but the misconception that SB 706 (Cunningham) provides public tuition assistance to families sending their kids to Catholic schools is one that made its way into numerous stories and blog posts on the bill yesterday.

SB 706 provides a wide array of fixes to the problems of three unaccredited Missouri public school districts, one being the Kansas City district. Numerous Catholic school leaders and students testified in the State Senate yesterday in favor of a provision of the bill called the Passport Scholarship Program. The program would provide a nonrefundable tax credit to individuals or corporations making donations to a qualified scholarship-making organization. Scholarships made through those donations must be provided to a student residing in an unaccredited school district and spent for tuition at a qualified, accredited non-public school. So to be clear:

- The scholarships are provided by private individuals and corporations.

- No public money is expended for the scholarships.

- Catholic and other private schools and the students who attend them would not be receiving any tuition aid from the state.

- Even the tax credit for donors to these scholarships is nonrefundable, meaning not a single dollar leaves state coffers; if the credit exceeds your tax liability, you are not getting a check.

- The tax credit is not for payment of your own child?s tuition. Only those making donations to a qualified scholarship-making organization get the credit.

- Finally, the financial benefit to the state outweighs the revenue lost in tax credits. For instance, if a taxpayer makes a donation in the full amount of the cost to educate a child in a Kansas City Catholic elementary school ($5,500) that taxpayer would receive a 60 percent tax credit ($3,300). If that child had gone to a KCMSD school, instead of a Catholic school, it would have cost the government $14,556 (the cost per student in KCMSD schools). Under the Passport Scholarship Program, a student on a full, privately funded scholarship to a Kansas City Catholic school saves the public $11,266.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheCatholicKeyBlog/~3/UAmy8v98aoU/catholic-schools-in-kc-diocese-do-not.html

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This month my focus is completely different–well, mostly different–from last month’s focus. Which is a good thing, I think!!!

I am choosing to read 1 John, thirty to thirty-one times this month. This is my second week, and again I happened to read it in eight times. I read it this week in the New King James (6), Living (1), and New Living (1) translations.

Secondary goals this month include reading in two different bibles. One, the ESV Student Study Bible. I am just LOVING this one!!! The book introductions are just perfect for my attention span. They’re informative enough, well-organized enough. But they’re not too much. It doesn’t take half an hour to decipher the introduction. And the notes are a good balance as well. The second Bible I’m reading this month is the NKJV Soul Care Bible.

From the ESV Student Study Bible

• 1 Samuel
• Hosea
• Romans
• Galatians
• Ephesians
• Philippians
• Colossians
• 1 Thessalonians
• 2 Thessalonians
• 1 Timothy
• 2 Timothy
• Titus
• Philemon

From the NKJV Soul Care Bible

• Psalms 51-110
• Proverbs 6-14
• Matthew
• John 13-21
• Acts
• James
• 1 Peter
• 2 Peter
• 1 John (5)
• 2 John
• 3 John
• Jude
• Revelation

From the MacArthur Student Bible, NKJV
From the Living Translation
From the New Living Translation
Key Verses:

And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment. Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us. (1 John 3:23-24)

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:11-16)

We love Him because He first loved us…And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also. (1 John 4:19, 21)

If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever–the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. (John 14:15-17)

He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him….If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. (John 14:21, 23)

As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. (John 15:9-12)

And above all things have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8)

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. (Romans 5:8-11)

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Source: http://operationreadbible.blogspot.com/2012/02/macarthur-system-1-john-week-of.html

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From the upcoming edition of The Catholic Key, by Santiago Ramos:

?WE ARE THE 99 Percent? is the online presence (http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/) of the Occupy Wall Street movement which is quickly spreading throughout our major cities. The idea behind the website is simple: to document the precipitous gap between the haves and have-nots in this country. As the homepage says:

We are the 99 percent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are suffering from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we?re working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent.

The site is a place where the 99 percent can air their grievances. Anyone can send in a photograph consisting of a headshot (sometimes the face is partially covered) and a note (usually handwritten) which takes after the style of the message above. For example, here is a short one:

My dad subjects himself to harmful chemicals 50+ hours a week so I can go to college and I don?t even know if I?ll have a job when I graduate.

We are the 99%.

If we could find one common denominator, one common attribute to the mood of all these messages, it would not be desperation. It would be a sense of individual helplessness and indignation. But the very act of sending a photo to this website implies at least the flicker of hope?the hope that something will come of this movement.

The 1% who has everything has it either because of injustice or because they were lucky. But if they were so lucky and the rest of us are unlucky, that is also an injustice. ?Either way,? the site seems to be saying in a collective voice, ?we have to do something together, because what needs to be done no one person can do on their own. We have to help each other to fight injustice.?

THE LATEST EPISODE of The Office??Lotto??also deals with luck and money and jobs. Perhaps the show?s writers were attempting to address, however obliquely, the grievances of Occupy Wall Street. Regardless of their intentions, they touched on some of the same grievances that one encounters as one scrolls down the ?We are the 99 Percent? page.

Because it?s The Office, they do it in a pleasant, inverted way. No one loses his job in this episode. Someone is simply passed up for a promotion, and doesn?t win the lottery.

The warehouse workers of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company?the guys who actually put the boxes of papers into the delivery trucks?win the lottery. The prize money is not quite a million dollars, and it is also split several ways among the workers who took part in the lotto pool. Nevertheless, the prize is big enough that they all quit their jobs and move on to better lives.

Darryl (Craig Robinson) was once part of the warehouse crew, and even part of the lotto pool, until about a year ago, when he took advantage of an opportunity to move upstairs for an office and a promotion: warehouse foreman. Now the workers he was the boss of all have cashed out, leaving him alone. On top of that, their winning ticket was based off of Darryl?s birthday.

Darryl spins into an existential crisis. He left the warehouse on a lucky break, in order to work for a better life for himself. Yet the real luck eluded him?insulted him, even. The real luck went to the people who stayed in the warehouse and won all the cash. He becomes a zombie, retreats into self-pity. He tells his boss to fire him.

The boss responds to Darryl?s request by reminding him that he (Darryl) had been promoted because he showed promise, and hunger, and hard work. But in the last year, he ?stopped pushing?: his fire was gone. That?s why he was overlooked for another promotion, when that opportunity came along. That is the real reason why Darryl is unhappy: because he isn?t working to make himself better, and is thinking about luck.

Darryl learns his lesson: ?My future will not be determined by seven white lotto balls? I control my destiny. I do.?

BEYOND CONTROL, THERE is only luck. That is what both the website and the TV show appear to be saying. The only difference lies in types of control. Darryl rediscovers his own will: he can control his destiny. The people posting on ?We are the 99? are smarter than that, because they have suffered more. They can?t control their own destiny, but perhaps there is hope in mutual cooperation and, therefore, in politics.

Some will find value in ?Lotto? because it reaffirms the importance of personal initiative. Don?t blame others for your problems: work harder. There is something to be said for that. But it is not something that should be said to most of the people who have shared their predicaments in ?We are the 99 Percent.? Most of them have suffered from problems beyond their control?medical problems, corporate downsizing, the end of industries.

What strikes me about both the website and the TV show, however, is that neither appeals to charity. Not charity in the Salvation Army sense. I mean the word ?charity? as it connotes friendship and dependency: we need others in order to get through life. Charity as solidarity: brotherhood in the face of suffering. Charity as love, and as something upon which to build the political order.

Charity won?t tell us (at least not directly) what political policies to pursue. But we all know how real it is: we all know how much we need someone else?s help when life becomes difficult. If nothing else, it is as real as luck and power. And perhaps, in times of anger and disappointment, it is something we should appeal to?not as a substitute for politics or hard work, but as a necessary precondition for both.

Santiago Ramos writes from Boston, MA.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheCatholicKeyBlog/~3/iwdPDRCzxt0/luck-power-and-99-percent.html

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God is ?the One Who takes the ?first step?? in any vocation to priesthood or the religious life, writes Pope Benedict XVI in his message for the annual Day of Prayer for Vocations. ?Every specific vocation is in fact born of the initiative of God; it is a gift of the Love of God!? the Pope writes. ?We need to open our lives to this love,? he says. The 49th annual Day of Prayer for Vocations will be observed on Sunday, April 29. The Vatican released the papal message, entitled ?Vocations, the Gift of the Love of God,? on February 13.

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