Advent Begins, Thank God
On the First Sunday of Advent, David and I decorate the tree while Kristen takes the shot. She reminded me this evening when we were tree shopping that this is David's second tree! Where does time go? He went with us last year to pick out the tree, though he didn't participate as energetically as he did this year. This year, on a tip from Tom-up-the-street, we went out to Chichester for our tree this year, only $15, and David went wild running up and down the aisles between the tightly wrapped evergreens. Back at home, he was good about decorating for about two minutes, then he wanted to pull the tree over, eat all the candy canes and wrap himself up in the lights. I understand totally. One more glass of wine with dinner and I might have been right there with him. With this massive project at work calling for night and weekend duty (I'm even dreaming about it, for heaven's sake!) I feel like climbing that tree and howling at the cold-wrapped stars. Good thing it's Advent. Nothing like the Church's liturgical calendar to help put some much needed perspective into our sometimes overly frenetic lives.

Here are some of our first looks at our new baby!
The ultrasound was Friday, Nov. 22, early because there was some question about dates and ... regardless, Kristen was right all along and the baby, quite active and looking great, is due in May. Though 14 weeks is a little early to determine gender, the ultrasound tech seemed pretty sure she could make the call -- and she did. I won't say here, in case some of you want to be surprised, but if you want to know, just go here and right click over the images and take a look at the names I gave the photo files ...

Legalize Same-Sex Marriage for the Good of Catholic Families?
Paul J. Griffiths, chair in Catholic Studies at the University of Illinois, argues in October's "Commonweal" that not only should faithful Catholics be able to support the concept of same-sex marriage, despite the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's pronouncement that "all Catholics are obliged to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions," but that support of same sex unions could benefit what he believes is the Church's correct teaching on marriage.
He writes: "Catholics may support the legalization of same-sex marriages, together with the progressive disentanglement of sacramental marriage from state-sponsored contractual marriage. It is likely that such support, together with the argument and clarification that would accompany it, would clarify Catholic teaching about marriage, help Catholics to live in accord with it, make it more attractive to non-Catholics, and so, in the end, conform the body politic more closely to Christ by making the church more seductively beautiful."
Interesting ...
And here's the rebuttal...
From Margaret O’Brien Steinfels, former editor of Commonweal. Eying Griffiths' strategy, to "make the Catholic idea of marriage more appealing to Catholics and perhaps attractive and inspiring to others as well," she wonders, "isn’t this just the sort of fault he finds in the CDF document—a 'lack of modesty about its own predictive powers'?"
Interesting...

ABC News, Infotainment, Conspiracy Theories and Kooks
There's an interesting story in the New York Times today about the ABC News special in which reporter Elizabeth Vargas sets out to show that the old conspiracy theory about Jesus having a wife (Mary Magdalene of course) is true. The special is based on Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code," which is in turn based on some pretty far out versions of history, including the supermarket-tabloid-caliber scholarship in "Holy Blood, Holy Grail."
I think it's great that somebody decided to examine the books and the belief system they promote; after all, there are far more accepted, legitimate views of the history in question than the one Brown presents (Constantine deified Christ at Nicea? Yikes.) and it would be good to contrast them. But that doesn't seem to be what ABC set out to do, at least not based on their guest roster which seems to include principally radicals, conspiracy theorists, dissenters and folks with axes to grind. Which, again, is all fine, they're entitled to their opinions, but where's the other side? And how could ABC news have balanced the piece to show that the other side represents the vast majority view of serious scholarship, while the view represented by the conspiracy theorists is that of a tiny, tiny minority?