G4 conditions alert from NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. (November 12, 2025)
I have now seen aurora two times.
The first was when my folks and I were living at 818 in Moorhead, Minnesota. I remember standing in the front yard, looking straight up, seeing pale greenish patches shifting. It looked a bit like drifting fog or blowing snow would, looking at a car’s headlights; but with no headlights.
That’s as lyrically descriptive as I’ll try today.
Then, yesterday evening (Tuesday, November 11, 2025), our third-oldest daughter came to my desk and told me that I should see the aurora. So did our son, as I was heading for the front door.
Earlier, while our oldest daughter and I were doing our usual chat, she texted ‘aura alert! brb’. Later, we discussed the difficulty of seeing aurora with eyes that detect colors quite well in daylight: but are distinctly sub-par at night.
Anyway, I lurched out the front door, hung onto one of the porch’s pillars, raised the other arm to block street lights, and enjoyed watching a wavering patch of indistinct red light. Mostly it was in the west-northwest.
My son told me there was more overhead. I believe him, but getting myself down to ground level would have been more work than — well, basically, I enjoyed what I could see and was thankful for that.
I’m told that our son-in-law got some photos. He’s got a device that’s good in low light levels, and a very steady hand. I’ll probably see those, next time we get together.
That “SEVERE Geomagnetic Storm ALERT” from the Space Weather Prediction Center is the sort of thing that’d have been science fiction in my youth.
These days, for folks like me, it’s mainly a ‘heads up’, letting me know there’s a chance to see a light show.
For others, who take care of today’s continent-spanning power grids and those parts of our infrastructure which orbit Earth, it signals that it’s time to use procedures developed for such circumstances.
There’s more to say about aurora, physics, science, being human, and God. But I’ve talked about that before:
Veterans Day and ideas about patriotism overlap, so I’ll start with an admission.
On the whole, I like being an American.
That’s partly because I think that “America” includes much more than this country’s national government.
A little over a year ago, someone expressed the idea rather well:
“…Just a thought … As we were reached the pad … there’s that American flag … on the side of the rocket itself, and we know that that represents unity, and resilience, and unified efforts for the common good. And that’s what Suni and I have witnessed this last month: each of you displaying what this nation’s forefathers envisioned: a people committed to God, family and country, a people who use their gifts and talents for the common good, and are passionate, and tough. And we all know that when the going gets tough … the tough get going … Let’s get going….” (Barry “Butch” E. Wilmore, astronaut, a little over four minutes before launch of the Starliner Calypso, from NASA video coverage (June 5, 2024))
I also am profoundly glad that so many folks over the last two and a half centuries have decided that serving in this country’s armed forces was a good idea. The rest of us owe you our thanks, if nothing else.
There. I’ve said it.
Now I’ll take a look at why I think “patriotism” can be okay.
Love of Country, Yes; Worship of Country, No
Adapted from a poster I made while in high school
Am I a “patriot”?
In at least one sense, I am not. In my youth, I ran into this definition:
Patriot: Someone who willingly lays down your life for his country.
Bear in mind that I was growing up during the Sixties.
The Indochina involvement was running full-steam-ahead, and a loud segment of the past-draft-age population were having fits. Partly, it seemed, because so many folks my age had started thinking, instead of supporting freedom by mindlessly doing what we were told to do.
Although I wasn’t by a long shot the craziest of ‘those crazy kids’, I was among those who were trying to make sense out of what was happening.
Maybe, a century or so from now, historians can sort out what looked like madness then. I’ve decided that the task would require access to information I don’t have, and very likely won’t get.
I have, however, decided that “patriotism” can be reasonable. That’s mainly because I now realize that “patriotism” is not “nationalism”.
“…While nationalism implies contempt or even hatred for other nations or cultures, patriotism is an appropriate particular — but not exclusive — love of and service to one’s country and people, as remote from cosmopolitanism as it is from cultural nationalism. Each culture aspires to the universal through the best it has to offer. Cultures are also called to purify themselves of their share in the legacy of sin, embodied in certain prejudices, customs and practices, to enrich themselves with the input of the faith and to «enrich the universal Church itself with new expressions and values» (Redemptoris Missio, 52 and Slavorum Apostoli, 21)….” (“Towards a Pastoral Approach to Culture” , Pontifical Council for Culture (May 23, 1999)) [emphasis mine]
Since I’m a Catholic, keeping my priorities straight is an obligation.
So although loving my country is a good idea, letting that love slop over into something else is a bad idea and I shouldn’t do it.
2113 Idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship. It remains a constant temptation to faith. Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc. Jesus says, ‘You cannot serve God and mammon.'(Matthew 6:24)Many martyrs died for not adoring ‘the Beast’ (Cf. Revelation 13-14). refusing even to simulate such worship. Idolatry rejects the unique Lordship of God; it is therefore incompatible with communion with God.(Cf. Gal 5:20; Eph 5:5) (Catechism of the Catholic Church) [emphasis mine]
Another point: caring about my family, and my country, is a good idea. So is caring about folks who aren’t close kin, or aren’t Americans.
Love of neighbors should include actually doing something: not just having warm feelings.
Respecting legitimate authority matters. Within reason.
“2199 The fourth commandment is addressed expressly to children in their relationship to their father and mother, because this relationship is the most universal. It likewise concerns the ties of kinship between members of the extended family. It requires honor, affection, and gratitude toward elders and ancestors. Finally, it extends to the duties of pupils to teachers, employees to employers, subordinates to leaders, citizens to their country, and to those who administer or govern it. This commandment includes and presupposes the duties of parents, instructors, teachers, leaders, magistrates, those who govern, all who exercise authority over others or over a community of persons.”
“2239 It is the duty of citizens to contribute along with the civil authorities to the good of society in a spirit of truth, justice, solidarity, and freedom. the love and service of one’s country follow from the duty of gratitude and belong to the order of charity. Submission to legitimate authorities and service of the common good require citizens to fulfill their roles in the life of the political community.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church) [emphasis mine]
Freedom, Responsibility, and Other Inconveniences
“There’s nothing quite so lovely as a brightly burning book”. The Hon:Mole MacCarony in Pogo. (March 30, 1953)
I am not “political” in the sense that I’ll deify Party A and demonize Party B, or claim that God agrees with me and if you don’t — well, you get the idea.
But I can’t ignore politics. Much as I’d like to.
Or, rather, I can’t ignore the ethical messes spattered across public life.
I don’t talk about those issues much, partly because I’m literally trying to keep my blood pressure down.
But now and then I do try explaining why I think human lives matter — no matter whose life it is — and discussing other ethical angles of contemporary living.
Sometimes that means making statements that sound “political”. I don’t like it, but paying attention to public life — including the “political” parts — comes with the territory.
That’s because ethics matter.
A word of explanation before I share more quotes. In Catholic-speak, “ethical” and “moral” mean roughly the same thing. “Moral” behavior isn’t limited to the handful of zipper issues that news media loves to cover.
“2245 The Church, because of her commission and competence, is not to be confused in any way with the political community. She is both the sign and the safeguard of the transcendent character of the human person. ‘The Church respects and encourages the political freedom and responsibility of the citizen.'(Gaudium et Spes 76 § 3.)
“2246 It is a part of the Church’s mission ‘to pass moral judgments even in matters related to politics, whenever the fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it. the means, the only means, she may use are those which are in accord with the Gospel and the welfare of all men according to the diversity of times and circumstances.’ (Gaudium et Spes 76 § 5.)” (Catechism of the Catholic Church) [emphasis mine]
Remembering “the Good of the Whole Human Family”
Some of this will sound “political”, but as I said: ethics matter. Even if they seem to support some political slogans.
“75. …Citizens must cultivate a generous and loyal spirit of patriotism, but without being narrow-minded. This means that they will always direct their attention to the good of the whole human family, united by the different ties which bind together races, people and nations….
“…76. It is very important, especially where a pluralistic society prevails, that there be a correct notion of the relationship between the political community and the Church, and a clear distinction between the tasks which Christians undertake, individually or as a group, on their own responsibility as citizens guided by the dictates of a Christian conscience, and the activities which, in union with their pastors, they carry out in the name of the Church.
“The Church, by reason of her role and competence, is not identified in any way with the political community nor bound to any political system. She is at once a sign and a safeguard of the transcendent character of the human person.
“The Church and the political community in their own fields are autonomous and independent from each other. Yet both, under different titles, are devoted to the personal and social vocation of the same men. The more that both foster sounder cooperation between themselves with due consideration for the circumstances of time and place, the more effective will their service be exercised for the good of all. For man’s horizons are not limited only to the temporal order; while living in the context of human history, he preserves intact his eternal vocation. … By preaching the truths of the Gospel, and bringing to bear on all fields of human endeavor the light of her doctrine and of a Christian witness, [the Church] respects and fosters the political freedom and responsibility of citizens….” (“Gaudium et Spes” , Pope St. Paul VI (December 7, 1965) [emphasis mine]
“Agents of Security and Freedom of Peoples”
It’s been a long time since I saw someone write ‘I thought Jesus was a pacifist’, but my guess is that similar notions are still oozing through social media.
Although I don’t like war — it breaks things and kills people — I’d make a lousy pacifist.
Even during the Sixties, I realized that sometimes keeping people safe means doing more than uttering stern reproofs.
This is not a new idea.
“2263 The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. ‘The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor. … The one is intended, the other is not.’ (“Summa Theologica”, , STh II-II,64,7, St. Thomas Aquinas) [emphasis mine]
“…79. …Those too who devote themselves to the military service of their country should regard themselves as the agents of security and freedom of peoples. As long as they fulfill this role properly, they are making a genuine contribution to the establishment of peace.” (“Gaudium et Spes” , Pope St. Paul VI (December 7, 1965) [emphasis mine]
I’ve talked about America, legitimate defense, and acting as if ethics matter, before:
“Making a Cross from Four Palm Fronds” with my wife and me. (2011)
My wife grew up in a very “Catholic” family.
That doesn’t mean what you might think it does: old-fashioned clothes, candles everywhere, too many children, and the girls brought up to be doormats.
Okay, granted: my wife is the second of seven kids. But I can’t think of one of the other six who’s redundant.
Then there’s the matter of how my in-laws brought up their children. Take, for example, the time someone from the high school called my father-in-law with an grave concern regarding my wife’s younger sister.
The conversation went like this:
Concerned educator: “Do you know that your daughter wants to take SHOP?!“
My father-in-law: “So? Let her!”
And so, she took shop class. A bit later, one of my brothers-in-law took home ec. Partly, I suspect, because so many girls were taking the class. But, as my wife pointed out, he enjoys food preparation and is good at it.
Time passed. My wife’s older sister became a doctor. My wife earned a degree in computer science. I didn’t, but that’s when I met her. Her other siblings ended up doing things that fit their goals and abilities.
Like I said: a very Catholic family.
My sister-in-law the doctor came closest to following a family tradition. My wife’s mother’s mother’s mother was a midwife: who never lost a baby or a mother.
Another of my wife’s ancestors was accused of practicing witchcraft. Why, I don’t know, and the charges didn’t stick.
My guess is that the alleged “witch” was too good at helping neighbors stay healthy.1 That, over the last few centuries, could have triggered panicked responses.
My wife’s knack for acquiring knowledge of health, nutrition, and helpful herbal products suggests to me that healing has been a family tradition of sorts.
Health, Medicine, Being Catholic, and Using My Brain
Detail from a standard 13th century medical text.
Considering what’s happened in the last half-millennium, I’d better talk about being Catholic, science, medicine, and using my brain.
Very briefly: being healthy is okay, being sick is okay; getting well, and helping others get well, is a good idea. Scientific research is okay, too: and ethics matter, same as with everything else we do. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1410, 1500-1510, 2292-2296)
Some things aren’t okay, like divination and trying to get random spirits to do us favors. That’s a really bad idea and we shouldn’t do it, which is where rules about using “traditional cures” come from. (Catechism, 2115-2117)
Folks who paid attention to how our bodies and the rest of the world work, using that knowledge to help us stay well, might have been called herbalists, healers — or, when Europeans and Euro-Americans were going bonkers, starting around 1500 — witches. These days, we call them “doctors”.
And I am very glad that my native culture has started accepting the idea that women can use healing arts and not be a threat to civilization.
Peter Paul Rubens’ “Teresa of Ávila”. (ca. 1615)
One of these days I may talk about doctors of the church like Saints Hildegard of Bingen, Thomas Aquinas, Teresa of Ávila, and Augustine of Hippo; but not today.
That kind of “doctor” isn’t the medical kind, although St. Hildegard of Bingen contributed, in the 12th century, to what we call medical science:
“…Hildegard’s medicinal and scientific writings, although thematically complementary to her ideas about nature expressed in her visionary works, are different in focus and scope. Neither claim to be rooted in her visionary experience and its divine authority. Rather, they spring from her experience helping in and then leading the monastery’s herbal garden and infirmary, as well as the theoretical information she likely gained through her wide-ranging reading in the monastery’s library….” (Hildegard of Bingen, Scientific and medicinal writings, Wikipedia)
The notion that religious people don’t like either modern or traditional medicine, and that religion and science get along like mongoose and cobra, is fairly new.
1 This was several generations back. My wife says the ancestor was accused of being a witch, but I remembered the story as involving a warlock. It’s not a high-priority bit of family lore, and so isn’t something I’m inclined to investigate. Either way, the charges didn’t stick.
Google Maps: Fargo, North Dakota; part of the south side.
Google Maps and Street View: Fargo, North Dakota, decades after we lived there.
Our first apartment was in Fargo, North Dakota; in the square mile south of Main Avenue and between I-29 and 25th Street South.
I don’t know how Fargo zoned that land. From what was there, my guess is that the designation would translate into ‘meh, whatever’.
Our apartment was on the top floor, and had a nice floor plan. Bedrooms were on either side of a living area. A kitchen and bath shared a wall with that floor’s corridor.
That’s the good news.
Something was wrong with the place. Come winter, no matter what we did, it was uncomfortably hot.
Then there were the crickets. The apartment’s nooks, crannies, and carpeting supported a modest cricket community. Normally, they’re lively insects. But these critters didn’t hop or skitter. They walked. Slowly.
On the other hand, only one of the windows fell out of its frame while we were there.
Maybe, given time, we could have done something about all of the above. Instead, when opportunity came, we found a place on Fargo’s north side. And that’s another topic.
Our First Child, Learning New Skills
We were still living with slow crickets when our first child came.
Happily, my wife was the second-oldest of seven, so she had infant-care skills.
As for me, I gleefully, if sometimes ineptly, learned how to hold babies and change diapers.
Okay. “Gleefully” and changing diapers isn’t a good match. But saying I was pleased about being a father would have been an understatement.
What They Don’t Tell You About Holding Infants
Turns out that, as a skill, holding babies has at least two facets.
First, there’s the matter of providing adequate support for the infant’s head and cradling the rest of the tiny person’s body.
Second: something I haven’t seen in ‘how to hold a newborn baby’ discussions.
It’s very important — particularly, I suspect, for fathers — to hold their infant in such a way as to not frighten the mother.
That brings me to one time when we were descending the stairs at our first apartment.
A Lesson on a Stairway
With some practice, it’s quite possible to safely hold a sufficiently-wrapped infant in the crook of one arm.
I gather the technique has a name: cradle hold.
I didn’t know that at the time. I’d just learned that I could keep her head, neck, and body lined up along my left forearm; with my left hand maintaining a firm-but-not-tight hold on her bottom.
Perfectly safe. Even when I was walking.
Or, rather, thanks to my gimpy hip, lurching. With a cane in my right hand. It’s odd: after I started using a cane, around age 20, I didn’t get nearly as many disturbed looks from folks. And that’s yet another topic.
Anyway, all three of us were heading somewhere. I don’t remember where. Any place that wasn’t that apartment was a treat, and I’m drifting off-topic again.
This time I was holding our daughter. Securely and safely. In the crook of my left arm.
Going down the building’s switchback stairs.
With my wife a step or two behind me.
Giving her a clear view of her baby being swung over the stairway’s gap.
I don’t remember exactly what she said, or how she said it.
I do remember a swift and lasting lesson: don’t swing the baby over gaps. Ever.
Good idea, I think. Aside from not alarming my wife, there’s prudence in not assuming that what I think is safe enough: is actually safe enough.
Vocations
“VOCATION: The calling or destiny we have in this life and hereafter. God has created the human person to love and serve him; the fulfillment of this vocation is eternal happiness (1, 358, 1700). Christ calls the faithful to the perfection of holiness (825). The vocation of the laity consists in seeking the Kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God’s will (898). Priestly and religious vocations are dedicated to the service of the Church as the universal sacrament of salvation (cf. 873; 931).” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Glossary)
I like being married. I realized that it was my vocation long before I knew what “vocations” in the Catholic sense were: long before I became a Catholic, for that matter.
But being married isn’t the only vocation.
I’d better clarify the term.
A vocation, in the Catholic sense, is what each of us does with our life.
In my dialect of English, when Catholics say “vocations”, we generally mean being a priest, monk, or nun.
But vocations aren’t limited to either the religious sort, or being married.
For folks like me, who are part of the laity, rules for managing human sexuality are slightly different when we’re married. But single, married, or in a religious vocation: being human, including our sexuality, matters. So does what we do with our human nature. (Catechism, 2337-2359, particularly 2349)
Our first child has long since grown up.
She’s single: not because she didn’t find the right guy, but because she thinks it’s a good idea for her.
I think she’s right.
I don’t “understand”, on an emotional or experiential level, why she decided that finding ‘Mister Right’ and raising a family wasn’t for her. But we’ve talked about this: and I understand, intellectually, her decision. Just as important, I accept it.
People, Duties, and Doing Our Job
Human beings, all human beings, are people. People matter. We’re not all alike, and that’s okay: we’re supposed to be different. Single adults are people. And, since people matter, they matter, too. (Catechism, 1658, 1934-1938, 2258-2317, for starters)
While I’m thinking of it — this is a bit counter-cultural.
My wife and I didn’t have a “right to a child”, because a child is a person, not property. (Catechism, 2378)
While we were raising them, each of our children had a duty to obey us. My wife and I had duties, too: which included remembering that each of our children was a person. Part of our job was educating them, showing them how to make good decisions. (Catechism, 2217, 2221-2230)
And part of our job was not telling them what sort of jobs they should have, who they should marry: or whether they should get married. (Catechism, 2230-2231)
From “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” trailer. (1953) The ‘good old days’ weren’t all that good.
Like I said, the way we should live is a bit counter-cultural now.
It didn’t fit cultural norms back in my ‘good old days’ — which weren’t — either: which is yet again another topic.
I’ve talked about dealing — and living — with differences, vocations, and being human, before:
Something new each Saturday.
Life, the universe and my circumstances permitting. I'm focusing on 'family stories' at the moment. ("A Change of Pace: Family Stories" (11/23/2024))
I was born in 1951. I'm a husband, father and grandfather. One of the kids graduated from college in December, 2008, and is helping her husband run businesses and raise my granddaughter; another is a cartoonist and artist; #3 daughter is a writer; my son is developing a digital game with #3 and #1 daughters. I'm also a writer and artist.
I live in Minnesota, in America's Central Time Zone. This blog is on UTC/Greenwich time.
Support this Blog:
More Perspectives From the Catholic Laity:
Blog - David Torkington
Spiritual theologian, author and speaker, specializing in prayer, Christian spirituality and mystical theology [the kind that makes sense-BHG]
