“…Among those off the road is this driver in west-central Minnesota, who decided a blizzard is the perfect time to start hauling a fishing boat….” [emphasis mine]
I don’t know who made that decision, or why. But I’m glad it wasn’t me.
Seriously, Though
I’m just glad that, from the looks of it, the fishing boat hauler’s trip ended without serious injury. And, so far, I haven’t learned of anyone getting killed in this storm.
That Bring Me The News article passed along numbers for storm-related accidents from the Minnesota State Patrol, as of 6:00 a.m. today:
253 Reported crashes
30 Resulting in injuries
333 Vehicles off the road
30 jackknifed semis
11 Spinouts
The 30 jackknifed semitrailer trucks include the ones piled up Tuesday afternoon on I-94, about 20 minutes this side of the Minnesota-North Dakota border.
The tangle kept westbound lanes closed for about five hours, I gather. I-94 westbound was finally clear around 9:00 p.m.
It’s easy enough for me to laugh at that someone deciding that hauling a boat in a blizzard is a good idea: and getting the predictable reality check.
I’m in my mid-70s, have lived in this part of the world most of my life, have had my reminders about cause and effect: and learned from many of them. Now that I’ve said that, it sounds like ‘famous last words’, so maybe I’d better stop writing.
Scenes at McStash Mills, near Hillsboro, North Dakota.
More about weather, situational awareness, and stuff that can go wrong:
“Happily ever after doesn’t require any complicated maths, the Vatican said on Tuesday — for Catholics, one spouse is enough.
“In a new decree approved by Pope Leo, the Vatican’s top doctrinal office told the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics they should seek to marry one spouse for life and should not have multiple sexual relationships.
“Criticizing the practice of polygamy in Africa, including among members of the Church, the Vatican reiterated that it believes marriage is a lifelong commitment between one man and one woman.…”
“…’Polygamy, adultery, or polyamory are based on the illusion that the intensity of the relationship can be found in a succession of faces,’ the new decree said.
“The document does not discuss divorce, which the Church does not recognise as it views marriage as a lifelong commitment.
“The Church however has an annulment process, which evaluates whether marriages were properly contracted, and stresses that partners are not expected to stay in abusive relationships.“ [emphasis mine]
This is not what I’ll be talking about this week. But it’s got the potential for becoming ‘breaking news!’, so I’ll take a few minutes with it.
The basic idea, that marriage is between two humans — a man and a woman — isn’t new. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1601-1658)
Neither are rules outlining ways I could, but should not, cheat on my wife. Or vice-versa. (Catechism, 2380-2391)
Most of those prohibitions involve behavior I emphatically would not want to do in the first place, but my guess is that some folks would. I’m surprised that more folks in my native culture haven’t been calling for inter-species marriages. It seemed, in my youth, a likely extension of the animal-rights lunatic fringe. And I’m drifting off-topic.
I found a document on vatican.va that matches the Reuters article description.
“Una Caro” (Italian translation) Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (November 25, 2025)
But since it’s the Italian translation, and runs well upwards of a thousand words, I haven’t read it. Google’s translate function works pretty well, but the document is academese, and — that’s yet another topic.
There’s more I could, and maybe should, say about marriage, Catholic style. But I’ve touched on some of it before:
I don’t remember 1215, the house my parents lived in when I was born. It wasn’t much later when they moved to 818, also in Moorhead, Minnesota.
My earliest memory is of 818. I don’t know how old I was, but it was probably before I learned to walk.
At any rate, the memory is a sort of snapshot of the stairs between the first and second floors, looking up from a landing that was two steps up from the living room. The perspective doesn’t make sense unless my head was less than a foot from the floor.
I’m not sure why my folks called our homes by their numbers: “818” (“eight-eighteen”) and 1010 (“ten-ten”).
Maybe it’s because they were both librarians, and applied a habit of numbering books to identifying houses. Or maybe they thought it was a good way help me know our address. That way, I could find my way home or tell someone where I lived.
One House, Three Kitchens
Before my folks lived there, 818 had been modified, with an apartment on the second floor, and another in the basement. My guess is that quite a few houses around the college campus had been refitted that way.
I don’t know this, but it’s likely that one reason they bought 818 is that the second floor apartment was a place my mother’s mother could live. I don’t know when she moved there from Hillsboro, North Dakota. Grandma had always lived upstairs, as far as my awareness went.
We didn’t, arguably, actually need three kitchens for a single multi-generation family. But the arrangement suited the way we lived at the time.
The Basement and a Clothes Chute
The basement apartment was where my father kept his clothes and set up a den. For a while he had darkroom equipment set up in the apartment’s kitchen.
His den was what would have been the apartment’s bedroom/living room, at what seemed like the back of the apartment. It was actually under the front of the house. Stairs to the basement were under the stairs to the second floor, of course.
Facing the foot of those stairs, you’d see a squarish door, with the sill about two and a half feet off the floor. It led to a crawl space my folks used for storage, under my bedroom: which was a flat-roofed addition they’d added. Don’t know where they’d have put me, otherwise.
Anyway, a 180-degree turn at the foot of the stairs put you in a short hallway, with a door to the basement apartment’s kitchen on your left, a door to the subcompact bathroom at the end, and a low door to under-stairs storage on your right.
Angled to the left of the bathroom door was another door, leading to an unfinished part of the basement.
That was mainly where the washing machine and, later, dryer, were, to your left, and beyond that a deep indent in the wall with shelves holding canned goods. I’m told my grandmother did canning down there, for at least one season.
The furnace defined the right/east side of the room, with the bottom of a clothes chute coming out of the ceiling between the furnace and hall door.
As a child, I thought the clothes chute was very cool: a vertical passage that let clothing drop from the second floor to the basement. And I remember my folks being what struck me as excessively insistent that I shouldn’t let myself fall down it.
Noisy Switches and Quiet Light Bulbs
I must have been — interesting — to raise. My parents told me that while we were living at 1215, they turned off lights by unscrewing the bulbs. If I was sleeping and they used a light switch, I’d hear the sound and wake up. Screaming.
These days, astute parents would likely spot that as evidence of a subset of my neurological glitches. Back in the early 1950s, my folks simply got in the habit of unscrewing light bulbs and moved on. My guess is that the discomfort/pain of my glitchy hip struck them as a likely cause for my hypersensitivity to sounds.
Either the switches in 818 were quieter, or I’d sorted out which nighttime sounds warranted being alarmed by then.
Let’s see, what else. Cats and back yard. Right.
My folks had the habit of sequestering the cat(s) in the laundry room at night. Which reminds me. My father had a very small shop set up behind the furnace, between it at a wall of the basement.
The Back Yard, a Landing, and an Experience
The back yard, I’m told, is one reason my folks took that house.
A fence was up when they moved in. Or maybe they’d determining that fencing it in would be a straightforward job. Either way, I remember the fence as always being there.
Having an enclosed back yard was a priority, they told me much later, so that I’d have a moderately secure place to run and play. Not that I was much of a runner.
Going out the back door, there were steps going up to a tiny room that was just big enough for a door to the steps, a window facing the back yard, and another door leading to the landing at the bottom of those stairs leading to the second floor. The back door itself was about a quarter of the way down the stairs to the basement.
One time I was heading to the back yard, and apparently forgot about the quarter-flight of stairs down to the door. I don’t remember falling, but do remember noticing that I was on the landing, on my side, and experiencing discomfort. I only did that once.
As I said, I was probably an interesting kid to raise. More so than usual.
818’s back door originally went straight outside. Not long after they moved in, my folks got a back porch added on: screens on three sides. We’d often eat out there during summer. The house was not large, and it was a pleasant spot.
Gratitude: a Work in Progress
Understanding gratitude: a good thought from the Wizard of Id. (November 24, 2024)
There’s more I could say about 818, my early years, and why I think being grateful for the memories I have is a good idea.
But I did something to my left wrist Tuesday evening, and have had it in a brace since Wednesday. The way it feels encourages me to keep typing to a minimum, at least for now.
Uncomfortable as it is, the situation includes cause for gratitude.
My youngest daughter, without prompting, decided to add a left-handed wrist brace to an order she’d made for medical equipment.
The left-handed brace arrived Thursday, around noon. It works much better than what I’d been doing: putting a right-handed brace on my left wrist. I don’t recommend doing that, but wearing it, with my left hand’s little finger going where the thumb should be, let me hold the joint still overnight.
That’s a good excuse for being grateful.
Now, about being grateful. Very briefly. It’s generally a good idea.
Acknowledging the gratitude I owe God is an obligation.1
I don’t have a problem with that, since I appreciated the beauty and wonders of God’s universe long before I became a Catholic; and am profoundly glad that I’m here to do so.
All that’s happened recently, in terms of that gratitude, is that I’m learning more about why it’s a good idea.
I’ll wrap this up with a few quotes, a thought about being thankful, and the usual links.
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving, his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name; good indeed is the LORD, His mercy endures forever, his faithfulness lasts through every generation.” (Psalms 90:4–5)
“See that no one returns evil for evil; rather, always seek what is good [both] for each other and for all. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:15–18)
Acknowledging my gratitude for God’s many blessings: even when, for example, my wrist hurts and I remember losing two of our children? That’s a work in progress:
1 Acknowledging the gratitude I owe God isn’t always easy, but it’s a good idea anyway:
“One can sin against God’s love in various ways: – indifference neglects or refuses to reflect on divine charity; it fails to consider its prevenient goodness and denies its power. – ingratitude fails or refuses to acknowledge divine charity and to return him love for love. – lukewarmness is hesitation or negligence in responding to divine love; it can imply refusal to give oneself over to the prompting of charity. – acedia or spiritual sloth goes so far as to refuse the joy that comes from God and to be repelled by divine goodness. – hatred of God comes from pride. It is contrary to love of God, whose goodness it denies, and whom it presumes to curse as the one who forbids sins and inflicts punishments.”
“Thanksgiving characterizes the prayer of the Church which, in celebrating the Eucharist, reveals and becomes more fully what she is. Indeed, in the work of salvation, Christ sets creation free from sin and death to consecrate it anew and make it return to the Father, for his glory. The thanksgiving of the members of the Body participates in that of their Head.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2094, 2636) [emphasis mine]
Mary Ann Glendon, former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, receiving the Gaudium et Spes Award, States Dinner, (August 5 2025)
I’m not comfortable with the way today’s America works, but I think this is a good time to be an American and a Catholic. That’s because part of my job is easier now, than it would have been in my youth.
Granted, experiencing “increasing opposition” from The Establishment1 isn’t comfortable. But honestly: why would I want their approval?
“Time for ‘Another Wake-Up Call‘” Mary Ann Glendon, former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, Address upon receiving the Gaudium et Spes Award, States Dinner, August 5 2025; Columbia Magazine (October 2025)
“Recently, I was somewhat surprised to read in a Catholic magazine that Vatican II is old history for most Catholics today — something like the Council of Trent. But I’m sure at least some of you recall what a wake-up call Vatican II was for many of us who grew up at a time when it was all too easy to get the idea that the role of the laity was to ‘pray, pay and obey.‘ Then, all of a sudden, we found out that, whatever else we’re doing in our lives, we’re also supposed to be transforming the whole political, economic and cultural arena in a Christian spirit! The temporal sphere is so much the responsibility of the laity, they said, that no one else can do the job….
…
“…Now, some of you are probably thinking that if we had paid more attention in catechism class, we would have known that’s always been the mission of the laity. That’s the Great Commission that Jesus gave to his disciples…
…
“…The mission was the same, but the challenges were new. And most of us, frankly, weren’t quite ready for those challenges. We weren’t ready for what Fulton Sheen called ‘the end of Christendom’ — not the end of Christianity, not the end of the Church, but the end of a society where economic, political and social life was permeated to a great extent by Christian principles. So, it really was time for the laity to wake up….
…
“…Building the civilization of life and love is first and foremost a matter of reaching hearts and minds. And that work will never end.…” [emphasis mine]
Lothar Wolleh’s photo: St. Peter’s Basilica.
The Second Vatican Council met each year, from 1962 to 1965. I wasn’t a Catholic at the time, so the Second Vatican Council didn’t make all that much of an impression on me.
Now and then I ran across slapstick in the news with the catchphrase “in the spirit of Vatican Two”. And sometimes I’d read something slightly more substantial about what the documents actually said. Very slightly.
By the time I became a Catholic, decades later, a few folks said they were the only real Catholics left. Mainly because they didn’t like what they’d heard about Vatican II, and that if the Pope wasn’t denouncing it, he wasn’t really Catholic.
You can’t argue with logic like that.
Me? I became a Catholic because I think Jesus hadn’t been lying to the Apostles. And I finally realized who currently holds the authority Jesus gave Peter. (Matthew 16:13–19; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 882-889)
Besides, I’ve read some of the Vatican II documents. They make sense. So does “Humanae Vitae”, written after Vatican II by Pope St. Paul VI. And that’s another topic.2
As for taking Jesus seriously, I agree with Simon Peter:
“Jesus then said to the Twelve, ‘Do you also want to leave?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.'” (John 6:67–69)
“…The End of Christendom … Not a Gloomy Picture….”
Bible epics: Samson and Delilah (1949), ‘David and Bathsheba’ (1951), ‘Sins of Jezebel’ (1953), ‘Solomon and Sheba’ (1959), ‘The Prodigal’ (1955), ‘Esther and the King (1960).
I’ve tried tracking down that Archbishop Fulton Sheen quote. What I’ve found agrees that he said it in 1974: at a conference, on a television show, or maybe both. This is the closest I’ve found to an extended version of the quote, giving some context:
“In 1974, Archbishop Fulton Sheen said in a conference, ‘We are at the end of Christendom. Not of Christianity, not of the Church, but of Christendom. Now what is meant by Christendom? Christendom is economic, political, social life as inspired by Christian principles. That is ending — we’ve seen it die.’ But he went on to say, ‘These are great and wonderful days in which to be alive. … It is not a gloomy picture — it is a picture of the Church in the midst of increasing opposition from the world. And therefore live your lives in the full consciousness of this hour of testing, and rally close to the heart of Christ.” (“From Christendom to Apostolic Mission Quotes” , From Christendom to Apostolic Mission: Pastoral Strategies for an Apostolic Age by University of Mary; via GoodReads) [emphasis mine]
From “The Ku Klux Klan in Prophecy” Pillar of Fire Church. (1925)
I’m about 56 years younger than Archbishop Sheen, but I remember what passed for “Christendom” in America.
Although living in today’s world doesn’t consistently feel good, I emphatically and sincerely do NOT yearn for ‘the good old days’.
It wasn’t just Bible Epics preaching the Gospel According to Cecil B. DeMille.3
It was the impression that Christians were, or should be, upwardly-mobile folks with English-sounding names who went to the right church — who, intentionally or not, helped launch the Sixties counter-culture.
I will admit to a bias. I’m one of ‘those crazy kids’ who thought that buying stuff I don’t need with money I don’t have to impress people I don’t like made no sense. At all.
An Assumption and “The Apotheosis of Washington”
Detail, Constantino Brumidi’s “The Apotheosis of Washington”, U.S. Capitol rotunda. (1865)
John James Barralet’s “Apotheosis of Washington,” based on a work by Gilbert Stuart. (1800-1802)
“Train the young in the way they should go;
even when old, they will not swerve from it.”
(Proverbs 22:6)
One of my daughters suggested that the current mess came partly from misplaced trust.
I think she’s got a point.
Folks who believed that America was a “Christian” country might have felt that delegating responsibility for teaching their kids about our faith made sense. Particularly if they hadn’t learned all that much about it themselves.
Why more didn’t balk at goofy conflations of American folklore and Christian belief like “The Apotheosis of Washington”:4 that, I don’t know. I do think that there was, at best, an appalling lack of quality control when it came to passing on the faith.
“…Great and Wonderful Days in Which to be Alive….”
Grant Hamilton’s view of William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. (1896)
“We are at the end of Christendom. Not of Christianity, not of the Church, but of Christendom. … These are great and wonderful days in which to be alive. … It is not a gloomy picture — it is a picture of the Church in the midst of increasing opposition from the world.…” (Archbishop Fulton Sheen (1974)) [emphasis mine]
I’m not sure about the extent to which Christian principles actually inspired “economic, political, [and] social life” in the generations before 1974.
Christian-sounding slogans, yes; husbands and fathers joining the ‘right’ church in their quest for career success, yes. But actually putting ideas like “love your neighbor” into practice? Well, maybe. What I remember is a society with seriously disordered priorities.
So yes, I think this is a good time to be alive.
This is certainly not a comfortable era, for anyone.
But the more that I don’t have to explain why being a Christian doesn’t necessarily mean being a particular sort of American, the better I like it.
Goals, and the Best News Humanity’s Ever Had
“A False Alarm on the Fourth” Udo Keppler, Puck. (1902) “Uncle Sam — It’s all right! There’s no fighting! The noise you hear is just my family celebrating!”
On the other hand, being an American doesn’t, or shouldn’t, get in the way of being a Christian and a Catholic. And I shouldn’t put off ‘love of country’ until the country I live in is perfect.
“… ‘Our true native land is heaven, where the kingdom of God is in full bloom,’ the supreme chaplain (Archbishop Lori) affirmed. Nonetheless, he added, ‘We must love our country as it is, not as we may wish it to be … This doesn’t mean we should be complacent or settle for the status quo. It only means we can’t defer love of country until everything is shipshape’….” (“125 Years of Patriotic Service” , Columbia staff, Columbia Magazine (April 2025)) [emphasis mine]
Now I’d better get back to what I should be doing.
I’m one of the Catholic laity: folks who are Catholic, but not priests, deacons, or members of a religious order. Part of my job is “transforming the whole political, economic and cultural arena in a Christian spirit”.
Okay, so what does that mean? What should a transformed society look like?
For starters, it would be a society where all people matter, and each person matters: every person, no matter how young, old, sick, or healthy the person is. (Catechism, 2258-2317)
That’s a pretty tall order. I’m working on learning to act that way, myself. It’s not easy.
Backing up a bit, another part of my job as a Catholic is sharing the best news humanity’s ever had, with anyone willing to listen.
That’s very good news indeed, because we “…all need salvation and that salvation is offered to all through Christ….” (Catechism, 389, 405, 407-412, 1701-1707, 1811, 1949)
I’ve said that before, and expect that I will again.
Justice, Charity, Respect: Sounds Good to Me
Adimono’s “Sun City”. (2011)
It’s probably obvious, but the status quo isn’t acceptable. Even stalwart defenders of today’s Establishment seem aware that we need change.
We can’t go back to some imagined ‘good old days’. Even if we could, I’d argue against repeating mistakes that landed us in today’s pickle barrel.
That leaves us one direction: forward, building a society that’s better than what we’ve got. I’m convinced that this is possible. Easy, no. Possible, yes.
As for what that society would look like, some of the basics —
Justice and acts of charity, along with respecting humanity’s “transcendent dignity”, are all good ideas. So is building a society where justice, charity and respect are the norm. Here’s where it gets difficult. It starts in me, with an ongoing “inner conversion”. (Catechism, 1886-1889, 1928-1942, 2419-2442)
Like I said, not at all easy. But I think the effort is worthwhile.
More of the same, with a (very) little more detail:
“‘Not a Man but a God’” The Apotheosis of Gilbert Stuart’s Athenaeum Portrait of George Washington Adam Greenhalgh, Abrstract, Winterthur Portfolio; Volume 41, Number 4; University of Chicago (Winter 2007)
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:
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.
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Blog - David Torkington
Spiritual theologian, author and speaker, specializing in prayer, Christian spirituality and mystical theology [the kind that makes sense-BHG]
