More Card Coolness

In the form of a Battle Room game! Particularly exciting as I spent many of my younger years trying to find the computer game that most closely resembled either the battle room or the command school games from Ender's Game. (I think the final result was Homeworld). Naturally a real life game would be even more exciting, but I'm afraid the best we're ever going to have in my lifetime is laser tag. Which is still pretty darn cool.

Also, the InterGalactic Medicine Show is now offering four stories, one from each of the first four issues, for free. One of these is written by Orson Scott Card, and falls into the Alvin Maker series. I've bought all seven issues so far, and after re-reading these four, I'm delighted to see one by Card available, and I think the first story in particular (Trill and the Beanstalk) is a great selection. Go read.

Plenty Out of Poverty

I recently had occassion to be reminded of the story of the lady who gave her last alm, and in doing so gave more than all the rich who gave only a small percent of what they had. Throughout the course of the conversation, something was pointed out - something that, really, should have been obvious to a theology major, had I ever bothered to think about it - that passage can mean more than money.

The point is that the woman refered to gave all that she had to God, not just that she gave Him money. It might not be our calling to put every last cent we make into a collection basket, but that doesn't mean there aren't many other ways in which we can give Him everything. Nothing we do in God's name should be done half-heartedly. However it is that we are serving God, in our vocation, at Mass, in the love we give the people around us and the services we do for them - if we don't put our best effort into those services, we are not giving all we have to God. We're only giving half, or a quarter, or whatever percentage of our efforts we bother to put to use at that moment in time. If we look at our neighbor and say, "I'll do only this much for you," we're a rich man giving only a portion of what we have in abundance. But when we can look at our neighbor, or look to whatever service it is we're performing, and say, "Here is everything I can give to you or do for you," we're like the poor woman who out of love gave all she could. However little that service might be, it's always a great service because we gave the most and best we had, and worth much more in God's eyes than the larger services we put no care or effort into.

From One Season to Another

Happy fat Tuesday! And blessings for the beginning of Lent.

I've now been a Catholic for a number of years, but this is the first in which I truly used today - Fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, whatever you wish to call it - to prepare for Lent instead of just indulge. I've always been happy to celebrate the day as a big party and a reason to consume whatever sweets and drinks I wanted in the largest amounts possible.

This year, the preparation made sense. I ate donuts and sweet bread - with plans to leave all that I didn't finish on a table in the staff lounge at school. I sorted out the Christmas candy that would not keep from what will, and spent the night lounging in bed eating cookies because any I don't finish get thrown away tomorrow morning. It isn't the same as trying to use up cooking ingredients and avoid wasting money, but it's the closest experience I've had, ridding the house of the things I won't be eating during Lent to avoid just letting them spoil. I've been cleaning my room, if not fully wiping down every surface and dusting every corner. Putting away clothes that won't be worn, items that won't be used, ridding my room of clutter the same as I hope to do with my heart.

It's time, for whatever hours remain of today, to make those preparations. Clean and empty the house, put away worldly things, and get ready to meet God out in the desert. As the clock strikes midnight tonight we enter a season of repentance. It's time to abstain from lesser goods in search of higher, to turn our thoughts to who we are before God rather than what we want before men, and to do so cheerfully, knowing what awaits us at the end. For what awaits us is Easter, is life, is heaven, if only we have the courage to pass through the desert first.