Netflix has stolen my ignorance

Netflix has stolen my ignorance, and I'm not sure if I want it back or not. I have become a little bit addicted to Netflix documentaries. It all started last month with my research into the environment and finding the St. Francis Pledge. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, you can read all about it here. So, from there, I became hungry for information on what I can do to help. So, naturally, I looked into documentaries. There's SO MANY available on Netflix it's ridiculous. After learning all that I have about chemicals, the food industry, consumerism, healthy living, and being good to God's creation, my entire view of society is altered. So much of my life up till now was seriously destroying what God gave to us. It's bad for everything around you, and it's bad for your soul. So, I've decided, to ruin all of you're ignorance as well and spread the word on what we can do better to treat our bodies and our planet, the way I believe God intended. Below I will share with you the docs I have watched so far and why I feel the message is important. 

Food, INC.

Why I feel it's important: It exposes how horribly treated our food is. I'm not saying that for moral purposes we should all become vegetarians, I'm saying that meat is fine, God gave us many of these animals for food. However, they are still his creatures and it is for US to treat them with respect. Animals give up their lives to nourish us, we should be thankful to them and treat them with respect and humanity. The things I learned about the treatment of animals and the additives to the product have horrified me. The poster does not lie. You WILL NEVER look at dinner the same way.

Farmageddon

Why I feel it's so important: Did you know that there is a WAR on MILK? I sure didn't. But there is. Have you ever heard the term, "Raw Milk"? It means, straight from the cow. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the bible talk about milk? Moses was led to the land full of milk and honey, yeah? So it seems to me that milk was drank back in those times, before processing and altering the foods. So, how on earth is milk from a properly fed cow BAD for you? God isn't stupid, he doesn't make mistakes. There is NO REASON why we need to process and add anything to our milk. But, to drink milk straight from a cow is actually ILLEGAL in many states. Not just that, but when you hear about GMO's and Monsanto you're blood might just boil a bit.

Tapped

Why it's important: Bottled water is one of the biggest lies our society is fed and this doc exposes it. Did you know that bottled water companies that bottle and distribute in the same state are NOT FDA regulated? *Jaw on the floor* Did you know that many bottled water companies gather their water from MUNICIPAL (that means public) SOURCES? *yikes* These facts, and many many more, about the companies and what they are doing to harm many of the US's rural areas and the chemicals in the plastic bottles PLUS what the plastic manufacturing plants are doing to people who live near them, is enough to make you feel like a horrible person for drinking bottled water and make the switch to something better.

Hungry for change

Why it's important: Tons of valuable information about healthy living, the food you eat, and positive attitude. Great information on transforming your life through all the NATURAL things GOD provided for us!

Food Fight

Why it's important: Exposes the origins of the processed, flash frozen, additive FULL food craze and how it's damaging our world and bodies. Also talks about GMO's and how it's created more food than folks to consume thus creating over stuffed grocery stores full of utter crud food.

Ethos

Why it's important: One word...CONSUMERISM! This doc shows how our society has trained us to want more and more and more creating a demand that drains our resources, and seriously damages other countries through the purchasing of products linked to child labor, slavery, sweat shops. and more.

WHEW! That's a lot, right? Well,.if you're anything like me, you're wondering what to do with all this and what you can do to help create a better life for yourself, your children, your family. Well...here's some things you can do to make a difference in how God's creation, animals, people, and yourself are affected by you're choices.

Farmers Markets: Buy in season, locally grown, fruits and veggies from you're local farmers market. Many of them even accept food stamps. 

Kosher Butcher or Local Farmer: Transition you're meat purchases to a kosher butcher or a local farmer. You will ensure that the meat you are getting was treated with respect during it's life and that there is no additives to the product. Don't forget to ask the diet the animals where fed ensuring they were fed a natural diet and not a corn based feed. This has a huge impact on the quality and taste of the meat as well as the overall health factor of the product and the animal.

Water Filter: Instead of bottled water that is full of chemicals, over priced, and usually ends up a landfill of some kind, use a water filter. They have ones you can put on your faucet, pitcher's for your fridge, even reusable bottle sized ones so you can have delicious filtered water wherever you go. You'll thank yourself later and so will God's creation. 

Milk and eggs: If raw milk is legal in your state, give it a shot. If it makes you nervous, boil it first. My suggestion is to buy both your milk and eggs (as well as any other diary available) from a local farmer. This will ensure that there is no additives to the milk or the chickens and that you are receiving a clean natural product from an animal who was treated in the loving manor God intended. If raw milk is not allowed in your state, you can still buy organic whole milk. Remember that, fat-free, 2%, reduced fat, etc are all ques that something is full of additives and heavily processed.

Follow the frog and shop fair trade: If you want products that are made by people who are paid a sustainable wage to send their children to school and aren't slaves or forced child labor, consider the source. Here are some places to consider going to for things like coffee, chocolate, and even "craft type" items. All of the products are organic (natural) and better for creation as well as human rights.

The Catholic Relief Services (fair trade): http://crs.org/

Serrv: http://www.serrv.org/

Rainforest Alliance: http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/green-living/shopthefrog

I hope that everyone who reads this takes the time to get more educated and makes the effort to be good to the gifts God gave us. His creation, his creatures, his people, and yourselves. 

-Blessings

Homosexual Desperation and Hypocrisy

Can someone please explain to me why the LGBT community is so desperate for total and unequivocal acceptance? Why is it so impossible for them to say, "Hey, I'm Gay, you don't like it, and that's OK."

Let me tell you a story: I came from a family of mental illness and addiction. For years I continued to drink and smoke marijuana as an adult despite my family telling me it was a bad idea and despite having a diagnosis of being bipolar. I made some poor choices during my drunken states and missed out on some of my middle child's infancy. My family didn't approve of my lifestyle choices and they told me so. They never once pretended to accept the sinning I was doing. But it never, at any point, stopped them from loving me. THAT is loving the sinner and hating the sin.

Being Catholic, there's one thing I have learned beyond a shadow of doubt. Not very many people like Catholics, except other Catholics. Not only do we have a bad rep (which is largely and nearly exclusively based on misconception and ignorance) but we also seem to be a huge easy target. When people talk badly about Christians, 9 out of 10 times, they're talking about Catholics. How many pregnant nun jokes around Halloween? How many Pope joke memes on facebook? Do you see us all pouty and whiny demanding everyone love us and support us no matter what? No. We accept that others don't agree with us and we move on. We don't NEED everyone to love us. We love ourselves and we love each other.

The moral of this story is:

Feeling that how someone is living their life is wrong and refusing to placate them or tell them it's OK when you don't feel it is, is not hate, it's love.

If you really feel that there is nothing wrong with what you are doing, then you don't need anyone else's approval. Let alone, you shouldn't need to BEG for it.

Also, if you're going to put out there that everyone should be equal and have equal treatment, then practice what you preach. It seems like you either have to be part of the LGBTQ lifestyle, agree with the LGBTQ lifestyle, or be bashed as hateful and ignorant.

I'm proud to say that I'M A CATHOLIC, AND ME AND MY CHURCH DO NOT AGREE WITH THE SIN OF HOMOSEXUALITY. BUT IF YOU LIVE THAT LIFE OR SUPPORT THAT LIFE YOU ARE STILL MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN CHRIST AND I LOVE YOU. I WILL NOT TELL YOU IT'S OK TO DO WHAT YOU DO BECAUSE THAT WOULD MAKE ME A HYPOCRITE. BUT I WILL NEVER TURN MY BACK ON YOU.

-Blessings

The St. Francis Pledge - Fighting for God's Creation

There have been many times in my life where I have felt pulled and drawn to certain things. Like something was letting me know, "Hey, you! Get with the program and care about this!" Well, it's happened again.

For a couple months now I have felt a hunger for knowledge and information on how I can be better to the environment, to God's Creation. Now, if you knew me, then you would know that the environment isn't something I normally would have given a hoot about. Is it important? Yeah. But have I ever felt like a save the environment, reduce my carbon footprint kind of person? Not even a little bit. Which is why, it's been strange feeling this urge, this hunger, to educate myself more and to somehow be more involved in preserving this gift from the Lord. That's were my story begins.

Yesterday morning, I was bored and procrastinating on my household duties so I decided to look into things. What I discovered, is that the Catholic Church, MY CHURCH, has an official stance on global warming (also known as climate change). The stance is that Vatican employed scientists have without a doubt concluded that it IS, in fact, an issue and that we ALL need to STAND UP and do something about it.

After this, I started looking into what I can do to change things. What I can do to make things better. That's when I stumbled upon The Catholic Climate Covenant. From there, I learned of the The St. Francis Pledge. The pledge, as seen on the website, is this:

PRAY and reflect on the duty to care for God’s Creation and protect the poor and vulnerable.

LEARN about and educate others on the causes and moral dimensions of climate change.

ASSESS how we-as individuals and in our families, parishes and other affiliations-contribute to climate change by our own energy use, consumption, waste, etc.

ACT to change our choices and behaviors to reduce the ways we contribute to climate change.

ADVOCATE for Catholic principles and priorities in climate change discussions and decisions, especially as they impact those who are poor and vulnerable.

I am so pleased to have signed this pledge and to have decided to do my part in helping to make God's Creation a better, healthier, happier, place!

If you're interested in things you can do to make a difference, please visit this link.

-Blessings.

Baby Baptisms

Many non catholic, and especially non-religious, people will tell you that it is not appropriate to baptize a baby. They will say things like, "It should be his or her decision," "It's not right to force it upon them," "They need to be old enough to have learned what they are agreeing to." To all of this I say, pish posh. Get outta here!

First of all, to those non-religious people, if in your opinion, there is no God, how am I hurting my infant by sprinkling some water on their foreheads and having a preist say a blessing? What possible harm am I doing? What lasting side effects are there in the eyes of someone who doesn't believe? Exactly. If I get my child baptized a baby, and they decide as adults that they don't want to be apart of my faith, I'm pretty sure they aren't chained the to Church or locked into a forced arranged marriage. Just sayin'.

Has anyone else noticed that the very people who point fingers at the church callng them hypocrits and waving their finger at how very wrong we and our church are, how "close minded" we are, happen to be the most hypocritical and closed minded people, like....ever? Obviously, I believe that infant baptisms are not only acceptable but also important and a beautiful sacrament that my faith and my church do, but let's just say for arguments sake, I didn't. If I believed there was no God and that baptism was nothing more than the sprinkling of water and mummbled words. If that were true, and I genuinly believed it, then its nothing and non-binding and serves zero purpose.

These people though, these people who believe that it's nothing, are sitting here saying that it's wrong to take the choice away from a person. But wait a minute, baptism is a covenant  with God. Its the washing away of original sin, of the sins of the parents. It isn't the same as say, confirmation, which IS making a commitment to the the church. So which is it? Is God real and baptism real and the meaning and purpose real? Or, is it nothing but sprinkled water and mumbled words in which case it holds no real meaning and an infant won't even remember it? So how than would I have removed any form of choice away from my child save the same I would take in giving him or her a bath? You have to pick one. There's no middle ground.

To those Christians who believe that a child must become an age of understanding first, that to me makes no sense. If you really believe than you KNOW that God is real and that the truth is in Him and through Jesus, why would you want your kid to believe any different? Why would you leave anything open for them to doubt? Why would you not aise them as God is FACT not CHOICE? Food for thought.

Feel free to leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.

-Blessings

Absent

Good afternoon everyone. I wanted to offer my apologies for being so absent this past month. We've had a lot going on. Family from out of town, sick babies, a new canine addition to the family, and of course the obligitory family drama that often comes with a lengthy visit. But things are much more settled right now and I am very ready to jump back in with you all.

-God Bless

Lay off the hater-aid

Phil Robertson of the hit A&E television show, Duck Dynasty, hits the nail on the head with this one. This is actually a topic I am pretty passionate about, and have, on more than one occasion, considered making ranty youtube videos about.

It's the false and ignorant assumption which most of society (including many non-Catholic Christians) make, that just because we may not agree with something someone does, means we hate them, wish ill upon them, or condemn them to an eternity of hell fire. This may be true for some fire and brimstone or radical believers, but it is not so for most Catholics and other similarly moral religions. In fact, I for one, was taught from as little as I can remember to "Love the sinner, hate the sin." Let's take a look at this statement for a moment...

Love the sinner: Jesus tells us over and over again to love one another, to treat others how we would want them to treat us and to cast not the first. Judge not, yet ye be judged comes to mind. I am not a perfect person and I am not innocent of judging others. I am a sinner. However, I do not automatically hate someone because they are a homosexual or because they have premarital sex or because they live in a way that goes against the teachings of my faith. There are many good people in this world who "live in sin." Guess what, that sin, is between them and God and has absolutely nothing to do with me. I do not have to love the fact that my child draws on the walls to still love my child.

That being said, it doesn't mean I am going sit here and say. "Sure, do whatever you want. Live in a sin. Go against the Lord. It doesn't affect me, so why should I care?" Did God not tell Cain that yes, in fact, he is his brothers keeper, and his brother is his? We are all children of Christ whether we've accepted him into our lives or not. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ as Cain and Able were brothers to one another, and therefor, yes, it is my job to try and help you be right with the Lord. 

I will not apologize for saying, "This goes against the Lord and I love you and so does he and we do not want to see you be separated from him," with my actions and my voice. It is because the church loves you that they stand up to try and keep you from making the mistakes that separate you from the Holy Trinity. There is NO HATE in this but rather MORE LOVE than is quantifiable. So much love, in fact, that we are willing to take the never yielding persecution so that our message of love and guidance can always reach those who need to hear it. 

Hate the sin: Sin is ugly. Sin is what separates us from all that is right and holy. I am by no means innocent. I sin every single day of my life. But when I shut my eyes at night, I know that God loves me. I know the angles, the saints, the blessed mother, they love me. They forgive me. They pray for me. I do not hate myself for the sins I commit. I hate my actions. I hate that my daughter draws on the walls and touches things I have asked her repeatedly not to touch. But I love her anyways. She is my child. My blood. My flesh. As we are Gods children. His blood. His flesh. He loves us despite the fact that we do what he asks us not to every. single. day. Hate is defined as a strong disliking of something. I hate that ANYONE is apart from the Lord. I hate it, because I have what they call, "give a damn." I care about you. I care about myself, and it's because of this caring and this love that I hate to see you or anyone else separate yourselves from our awesome God. 

So what I am going to ask of you is this, if you find yourself reading this and you are not of my faith, please don't hate me for loving God and for loving you and wanting to see you do right by yourself and I promise not to hate you for injuring my Heavenly Father with your actions. We can all live in peace together, I want this with all of my being, but that doesn't mean I will ever stop encouraging you to be right with my God because I know my God wants to be right with you. 

-Blessings

Tips to a happier (and maybe even healthier) marriage Part #2

It's been almost a year, but I am finally doing part two of my tips to a happy and healthy marriage. Here it goes...

1. Intimacy. It's so important to come together on this level. Sometimes it's hard to overcome the stresses of the day or to move past whatever may be plaguing your thoughts. Perhaps you had a rough day at the office, or the kids were more challenging. Maybe you're stressed with money or you're just really tired. All of these things happen to us all the time, but it's important to put them to the side and become one with your partner as often as you can. For you that may only be a a couple times a month or a couple times a week, but do it whenever you can. A disconnect on a physical level leads to a disconnect in many, if not all, other aspects of your marriage. To be blunt, sometimes you've got to "bang it out."
2. Embrace each other's interests. Even the small ones. A book he or she may enjoy. A song. A band. An activity. It feels so good to be able to share even the small thing with your best friend and partner and it makes you feel more connected and appreciated when your partner cares. Common ground is really important.  Not being able to share with your partner can make you feel pretty lonely. I think this one is really important.  It goes right along with remaining friends. 
3. Compete. I don't mean in a childish game playing kind of way. I mean in a fun kind of way. Play a board game. Have a race. Do lazer tag. Challenge each other. It can be a lot of fun to get in touch with your inner child and connect on that level. It will strengthen your bond in friendship and release a lot of tension you may have.
4. Love them how they need to be loved/communicate what you need. We all need different things in our lives to make us feel loved. Some of us need verbal recognition, some of us need physical gestures. It's important to give your partner what he or she needs in order to nourish your love and forge a thriving connection built in love, trust, and the knowledge that you're partner cares what your needs are and takes the time to give you what you need. Remember that it's not all about you but communicate you're needs to your partner so that he or she may love you as well. It would be unfair to rob your partner of the chance to give you what you need.  
5. Say I love you, all the time, even when you may not mean it at the time. It used to drive me insane when my husband would tell me he loved me when we were fighting. I felt obligated to say it back. I wanted to say, "Man, I do NOT want to tell you I love you right now! I am angry and do I NOT feel like being nice!" But, I always said it back anyways, because in this life, things are always changing. You never know from one minute to the next what's going to happen or when those you love will be gone from this world. Always tell each other you love one another, even when it's hard.

-God Bless