Thoughts of a Canary

I had a good Lent. I think I benefitted from this Lent in a few different ways. Why, then, did Easter feel almost like a letdown??? I was at P3 last week (Prayer, Penance, Pub) and the priest giving the talk to all of us young people said something that I could really relate to. He said "It's easier to be holy during Lent." That's it. Pretty simple.  I look forward to Lent every year; it's actually my favorite ecclesiastical season (the hipster in me). The reason I enjoy it so much is that subconsciously I recognize that it brings us back to our roots as human beings.  Something I've mentioned in a couple of posts in the past is how radically the speed of our gratification has increased with the technology boom of the 2000s. Want to watch a show with your friends? You can watch the whole season in a day. Would you like to ask someone a question? Hit a couple buttons and it's sent.  What this power has done in the members of our culture is, in a word, coddl...

Happy Ash Wednesday to everyone! The advent of the Hipster Uprising has brought many unpopular things to the forefront of the trendy parade for the sake of simple irony. It's really quite amusing and for those in less urban areas completely unintelligible. Unfortunately this ironic effect is spilling over into the ancient and aesthetic Christian observance of Lent.  The purpose of Lent to the Chrisitan faithful is simply to unite with the sufferings of Jesus through sacrifice, and gain virtue through habitual practice of this sacrifice. I'll come right out and say we ourselves have lost the forest by focusing on the trees in this ecclesiastical season.  As a disclaimer this post is not directed at any individual or group of individuals, except for the group of Christians as a whole. It's a trend I've seen in myself and others, and it's gotten to a point where it's absurdity needs to be proclaimed.  We have all become a people of excuses.  In the time period wher...

There are very few things that I have found to be universally loved by humankind. While we have disagreements about things we fundamentally disagree on, we also have enjoy having fundamental disagreements about things we agree on simply for the sake of argument. We even gave this a fun name: Trolling. Anyone that has taken philosophy (read that in a snobbish voice) knows that there are some fundamentals that we have clung to for dear life through historical de-culturalizations, renaissances, and dark ages. As individuals we have disagreed on so much that in the past twenty years especially we have had to bring to the forefront some mutual human feeling so that we don't lose our kinship with one another. In the 1930s and 40s it was Nationalism, in the 60s it was free "love", etc. In spite of (and more to the point because of) this ramification of human identification, and in deference to the careful "tolerant" and "morally neutral" culture we've...

Matisyahu - The Jewish Reggae guy The other night I went with my old and dear friend Merco to see Matisyahu in concert. To say I knew very little about the man would be an understatement: 1. I know one song he's done: "One Day". 2. I thought he was black. 3. Not only is he not black and doesn't have dreads, he's Jewish. The first thing that really struck me was how few of the words I could make out. It truly sounded like he just made sounds into the microphone and threw in some English words every once in awhile to reassure everyone that he was actually singing about something. In contrast to most reggae out there, which is a ceaseless cycle of uninspired drum beats and toneless singing, he had very creative and lively music. But again, it was pretty much instrumental to my ears. The thing that truly made a profound impression on me was what is pictured above. Towards the end of his set, Matisyahu brought a menorah onto the stage and lit it ...

When thinking about the state of America today, there are surely elements that are less than ideal. There are many issues that Americans are split on: how lax immigration laws should be, who should be able to obtain welfare, and whether Tom Brady or Peyton Manning is the better quarterback (Aaron Rodgers wins). There are, of course, other things that we can all agree upon: We hate taxes, and distrust the vast majority of the officials we have elected to lead us along with their policies. Musing about the maladies of an entire nation, one aspect of life with daily exposure is crime. Frequently we hear about people kidnapping and abusing children; we are sandbagged with stories of shootings in schools; rapes and stabbings are ubiquitous occurrences in quiet suburban neighborhoods where we least expect them to take place. Now, it is important to consider as well that we have a group of men and women whose very livelihood is to protect and serve within the confines of the law so that...

Every single one of you get out of my house  For some reason pre-ordained by a mystical being, my labor of life takes place in a bank located inside of a grocery store. While this "Inception-like" locale offers many interesting wrinkles (Imagine if it were a bank inside a grocery store inside a thrift store #mindblown), it also offers challenges.  One of the greatest challenges to my remaining sanity is the music played inside of a grocery store. It consists of about thirty songs that loop continuously. It makes you hate the songs you like and abhor the songs you hate. For some reason they also play some really creepy songs like Clay Aiken's "Invisible": " If I was invisible . Then I could just watch you in your room. " No Clay. Just no. So when Christmas season rolls around (aka November 26th to these people) you immediately get buffeted with the jolly and cloying, cacophonous and cookie-cut Christmas crap they play on the radio. You all kn...

They say "Nice guys finish last." I say that nice guys know what they want.  I realized that I have written about a great many aspects of my life. I have written about my socio-political views, my religious views here and there, my college years, my current work, etc. There's been a good amount of song dedicated to these important aspects of human life. One topic I haven't really written about is one that I find of the most foundational in the consideration of Man. So I said to myself, "Self, why have you not written about romantic relationships???" In order to rectify this obvious injustice to you, my dear readers, I laid out the groundwork for this post that you are about to read. By "laid out the groundwork" I mean "ate a frozen pizza and watched a documentary on honey badgers." I was walking out to my car the other day, and I realized that I could (either honestly or hopefully) consider myself an "eligible bachelor". This...