I assure you, the evangelization will begin again soon. Michaelmas was fairly fruitful, even if I did not do very well during it. The habits of contemplation have ingrained themselves a little more fully.
For now, enjoy this shot from ohiorenfest Fantasy Weekend.

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Strongly considering doing another Social Media fast until Michaelmas.

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Community

Another subject near and dear to my heart. I have an unfortunately keen awareness of how badly the average person needs an uplifting community of like-minded people around them. I, personally, spent most of a decade speaking about four people a year, and spoke maybe 20 words a day. Years later, I am still unpacking the tremendous damage it did. Society will lie to you, and tell you that all the social interaction you need can be found online. Science and the Church can both prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is wrong. The Plague taught us all that this is wrong.
Risk something. Go outside. Find a tribe, find a group of people who want the best for you, who want you to be the best version of yourself possible. If you're not sure where to start, find your nearest Catholic Church.
You cannot win this War alone.

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Friday.

Friday is not a celebration. Friday is not a day of debauchery and freedom from consequence. The world tells you to relax, drink and party to forget your troubles. It lies and tells you that you can escape them of you just take one more drink, one more dance, one more look at that stranger...
There is only one place that you can escape your troubles. Only one person who can take them away. On each Friday, we remember that he died for us. For our sins and for our salvation.
For this, we declare War.

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Indolent

"It's just the way I am," is the defense of the coward.
The way I am is to sit on my couch, watch Netflix, and eat nachos, but I get up out of my warm bed every day and so my best to stay active, to sharpen my mind, my body and my soul. We are more than intertia, more than the path of least resistance, we are only afraid of our own potential. We watch videos and inspirational stories of people who dared great things and we dream of doing the same, but if we only dream, then we are the living dead.
To seek, to strive, to fail and rise again, to sharpen ourselves against the rigors of life, to embrace the salvific beauty in suffering and let it change us.
This is the beauty of War.

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Discipline.

Discipline is sexy. Discipline is awful.
It creates an interesting dichotomy in us. It's a trait we admire in others, but neglect in ourselves. Every master in any aspect, when questioned how they achieved their greatness, responds in the same way, with some variant of, every day, they set aside time to grind out and cultivate their skills. I use both of those terms intentionally. When I am practicing my guitar, running endless scales up and down the fretboard, or when I am running, every note, every quarter mile, every rep of the weight is a grind. It is boring, it is unfun. In the moment it is unenjoyable. But, I do it anyway. I take those seeds of ability, I cultivate them into skill. I go from struggling to play notes to effortless sweeps, from panting and sweating a minute of effort into running endless miles, from struggling under the bar to slinging heavy iron.
It is in Discipline, that we find the strength to wage War.

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In the world, but not of it.

It's a hard line to walk, I think. I also think it's different for each person. There are people who are called to dive whole-heartedly into the mess of modern society and engage as best they can. To try to correct the course of the ship foundering on the rocks. And there are those of us called to retreat entirely from the world and contemplate solitude and silence among peace.
Most of us fall somewhere in between, I'd say, but all of us could benefit from pulling away a bit more. To spend more time in silence and stillness, away from the most, the bustle and the constant "GO" that modernity pushes on us.
In peace, we can better know War.

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Fatherhood.

It's a subject near and dear to my heart. Growing up, my father wasn't around much, never really showed me what it meant to be a man, how one acted, how to treat others. I missed many of the important lessons of childhood and masculinity.
And when the father isn't present, culture steps in to fill the gap.
I was hammered relentlessly with the notion that a Real Man was borderline sociopathic, a remorseless killer, he treated those around him like objects of pleasure or ridicule. He was wholly and completely self-centered.
Of course, this is wrong, but this is the lesson that modern society wants to teach our young men. And it is up to us to instruct them differently, to live by a different example, to show them a better way.
The way of War.

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Just a quick reminder as Faire season begins, you can find me lurking at several of them.

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Confession.

"If we truly believed, the line for the confessional would outstrip the line for Eucharist every Sunday." I've heard this quote attributed to multiple people, so I dare not give an attribution yet. The aphorism remains true. If we really look at this accident of bread and wine and truly see the Body and Blood of our Lord and Savior, and if we knew how far short we routinely fall, we would crawl into the confessional daily.
Each of us has periods of failing wills, of despair and exhaustion. Each of us will have a time of constant, habitual, mortal sin. The attacks of the Enemy and our own concupiscence all but guarantee it. We remain strong during these attacks by matching time spent in Sin with time spent in Penance. Kneeling before God, begging His help and trusting in Him.
Trusting with faith and grace, we will win this War.

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Acedia.

A great deal of ink has been spilled over the Noonday Demon, and I will exhort you to read over much smarter people than I about that particular subject.
But sloth is dangerous, extremely so. As the story of King David teaches us, it's a gateway to further sin. To become lax in our discipline, to forget we are at War, to rest on our haunches, is to invite the Devil into our lives. It is not easy to be eternally vigilant, the world pushes us to the opposite, but we are not called to an easy life, we are called to greatness. And there is no greatness without struggle, there is no victory without defeat, there is no crown without a Cross.
Declare War, for without War, there is no Victory.

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Freedom.

The initial temptation is to simply repost President Whitmore's excellent speech, but I think a more unusual approach is called for.
"Nothing is true, everything is permitted." The old Creed of the Assassin's. While I can debate the first part endlessly, I'm choosing to focus on the second half. Even in the original game, Altair misunderstanding the tenet to believe that he can do as he pleases, eventually learning that instead, he is given the freedom to do as he MUST.
This is a key difference. Freedom is the ability to do as we like, that path lies to slavery of the body, mind and spirit in sin. Freedom is the ability to do as we must. We must be free to make the correct choice, we must be free if we are to sacrifice, to die to self, to offer our selves for another. If we are not free to choose this, or not to choose, then we are not truly free.

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Focus

I meant to have a serious examination of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul today, but I think instead I'll dial back a bit.
I literally did not realize this picture was being taken, nor did I know anyone else was nearby. One of our members had a progression plan he wanted to review with me, and I was DEEP in that conversation.
Which should be the default. We tend to distract ourselves so much that even during something that matters, our attention strays. We haven't checked our phone for a minute, we want to study the light fixtures, or the wallpaper, or the next person in line.
As Qui-Gon teaches us, we must keep our focus here and now, where it belongs. We want that level of focus from others, we should give it first.

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Service.

We are called to serve others, and this is a good calling. But we are called to serve our families first, and in this, we often neglect our duties.
It is an easy thing to show kindness and generosity to a stranger. It is easy to be patient and charitable to our coworkers. It is far harder and more important to show that same kindness, generosity, patience and charity to our wives, husbands, children and parents. Those we are constantly around, the people we've seen at their lowest and have seen us at our worst. But this is a greater responsibility, the harder calling, the harsher requirement that improves us in every conceivable way.

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Always ready, always vigilant.

Sloth, is dangerous. The world will always tell you to relax, take it easy. You deserve a rest day, after all. Never on the Lord's Day, that he set aside for rest and refreshment, though. The world wants you stale, colorless, just going along with the flow.

God calls you to the opposite. A Christian is active, they are vigilant. A Christian is at War with the world, and with themselves. A Christian is in revolt against the sloth and decay of the modern world. Stay Vigilant.

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War.

To be at war with oneself is not a new concept. To let the new man live, the old one must die. Today, we may couch it in terms like "self-improvement" or "self-actualization" or "manifesting," but it is an ancient term. St Paul himself teaches us that "for Him to increase, I must decrease," he begs for help, saying "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
St Paul recognized that he is in a war, and his opponent is himself. If we wish to truly live, if we wish to serve the Lord Almighty, we must recognize this war.
And we must declare War against Ourselves. Our soul hangs in balance.

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I'd like to make a clever comment or evangelize somehow, but, uh, I'm too busy admiring my own hair. Dang, those are some lustrous locks there.

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