I’m so over it….

We are citizens of our country, and our duty to society is to witness to the moral law,
which is the prerequisite for peace in our life together.
Raymond Cardinal Burke

Also Pope St John Paul II’s Redemptor Hominis is a sort of profession of faith,
calling to mind again that the Church is the Body of Christ,
the Church belongs to Christ and that we are all obedient in his service.
Raymond Cardinal Burke

(Raymond Cardinal Burke / Getty image)

I confess— I’m about so over all of the news…
the real, the fake, the angry, the salacious…
All the Trump this, Trump that…
Clinton, Obama, Comey, Putin, walls, immigration, lawyers, Twitter, swamps…

UGH!!!

I briefly caught one of yesterday’s headlines…
‘Comey says Trump not moral enough to be president….’

Really???

I don’t care if you like the guy or not…and by the way, my jury is still out on his reign,
but saying Trump is not moral enough made me laugh out loud…
This when I recalled the infamous “I did not have sexual relations with that woman…”

Was that morality????!!!!

Thanks to every news outlet during those heady days in the Oval office…every kid out there
got a quick lesson on infamous dresses and DNA evidence…

Morality and Washington go together…well, like oil and water…

No emulsion…no cohesion, not even a simple mixing there…plainly bipolar opposites…

So when I recently read a few quotes by Missouri’s Cardinal Burke, I had to delve a bit further
into who this prelate actually was.

And I must say that I conquer with much of what the good Cardinal has to say.

Moral Law—it’s what we in Western Civilization have always worked hard to separate from
our legal laws—
It’s like trying to separate eggs—they ooze and hold together as if they are one in the same…
Of which they are…

Very rarely do they want to separate cleanly.
And if the truth be told, our legal laws were built upon our moral laws.
Think Judeo / Christian Ten Commandments—
Very much one in the same.

Moral law is indeed a prerequisite for lasting peace and it is our duty as Christians to
do our darndest to live it.

Is it easy?

Nope.

Do we falter?

Yep.

And when we do, boy do we know it…because everyone and their brother reminds us of
our shortcomings…because everyone gets a pass but the Christians.
Not that getting a free pass is what we should ever receive.
It’s not.

The key, rather, is that we of the Christian fold know that we have a Redeemer who lives.

And we know that when we fall, we are offered a hand up…
It’s that whole notion of go and sin no more…

Not to go out and fall right back into our old habits—but rather it is that the old man
has now been defeated and the new man emerges…

And as the good Cardinal reminds us— it is our task to extend, as well as offer,
that same hand up which is steeped in a moral coded standard of compassion and forgiveness,
offered freely, with no stipulation, to the fallen as we stand as the moral compass
pointing the correct direction in this very troubling world.

With the arrival of abortion, society has experienced an increase in violence.
The murder of the smallest and most defenseless human beings is the root of social violence.
Now, some people say that people with serious illnesses or the elderly are useless.
That is truly horrible. You can see the profoundly selfish,
individualistic logic that is behind this view of a human being and his dignity.
Raymond Cardinal Burke

A cat’s tail?

“We need the tonic of wildness, to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.”
Henry David Thoreau

(cattails / Troup Co Ga / Julie Cook / 2015)

(cattails / Troup Co Ga / Julie Cook / 2015)

Nothing says lazy, tranquil and idyllic like a swaying patch of Typha latifolia, otherwise known as the common cattail. Nestled along the edge of any pond, creek or swampy culvert, cattails are the telltale sign of any sort of shallow standing water. Cattails stand erect, as if at attention like an army of brown little torches, they can be found growing all around the globe in or near any swampy or marshy environment.

The greek word for marsh is typha–which is most fitting for the cattail as it is truly a prolific marsh plant, that to some, is perceived as an invasive noxious weed. It is also from the word typha that we get the word typhoid—a disease spawned from fetid waters.

The cattail, often referred to as the corn dog plant, is a fast spreading tall massing plant whose leaves can grow upwards of 10 feet.
The brown “cat tail” which sits atop a long slender stalk is the “flower” of the plant.
The plant spreads either by the myriad of seeds released along the autumn winds as the brown cattail begins to breakdown or throughout the deceptively fast spreading rhizome root system. A cattail only needs shallow waters, keeping its feet wet, in order to thrive.

According to Green Deane, a naturalist and forager, cattails are edible and were even being considered by the US Army as a chief source of starch for American soldiers by the end of World War II. Cattails contain more starch than rice, potatoes or taro root. A flour made from the roots can be used in recipes just as one would use wheat flour.

Deane is the author of several books, as well as an online website and newsletter, educating readers as to the fine art of foraging for those edible wonders found in fields, glens and deep within the woods.

Deanne notes that anyone finding themselves lost and in need, who comes upon a patch of cattails, has everything he or she may need to survive– a source of fuel, a source of food, and a source or shelter.

You can read more about the common cattail, finding recipes and much more on his website:
“Eat the Weeds and other things too”
http://www.eattheweeds.com