Catholic Culture and Society: In praise of the natural versus the artificial

Showing posts with label In praise of the natural versus the artificial. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The Impractical versus the Practical and knowing where each fits into our lives.

Hand knitted garments and similar are lovely for a number of reasons / But don't mistake them for being practical everyday fare.

In other words we must order our environment to fit the existing environment.
__________

Nursing babies. It's not sexual, but why do most women act like it is?

Nor was it seen as sexual culturally by Catholics through the ages which is why we find through the ages painting of Mary nursing the Baby Jesus.

Candle light / decorating the Christmas tree

If you haven't planned on it, it's not too late. Lit candles on the Christmas tree are remarkably lovely. Years ago I read In Praise of Shadows, but it wasn't until we used candles that the drastic difference in ambiance between fire and electricity came home.

Not NFP but Ecological breastfeeding

Everyone talks about how God designed us for NFP as if NFP is a positive good. But what God actually designed us for is ecological breastfeeding.

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This blog is at human scale

because that is the scale at which we live and know the world about us

Society is by nature at human scale and natural to us.

At human scale we have stability, and know our place.

God created a world which is sufficient for us to know and live in. At human scale are we not deceived when we marry young and impulsively, we are married because God knew we would marry young and impulsively.

At human scale the self evident is not deception :

At human scale we're not deceived by our senses, roses really are red, and rocks are not voids with scattered energy particles, nor are they phantasms.

At human scale a big rock falling on you will squish you like a bug because it really is solid just like you perceive it to be.

How I approach each subject

I like to write down my thoughts because it forces me to think them through more carefully because I write as if I would be called to defend them.

This blog and my thoughts on it are a work in progress. I've changed and refined many of my views over the years by being challenged on different blogs and have little doubt I will continue to find errors in need of correction.

Most blog discussions occur because of a disagreement involving some aspect of our loss of cultural standards of right action.

We have for the most part lost our cultural memory and as a result we drift and latch onto whatever we find that we think has stability.

Catholics are as a result splintered into factions.

And while this blog is probably just another splintered faction of one, ( me ), what I am attempting to do is figure out what is the common ground that catholic society in the modern world can actually build from.

Which in turn means that I will not doubt offend many of those who read this blog because I will invariably question some aspect of their lives they consider virtually inseparable from the Faith.

My preferred method of discussion in the past on other blogs and forums has been to muse about and come up with my own arguments, and I've carried that method onto this blog.

So if you're looking for erudite arguments and brilliance you won't find either of them here, but hopefully you will find a down to earth common sense approach and understanding.

I typically look at any subject intuitively and according to common sense.

About me : love the girls

I'm a self employed architect and residential general contractor here in my home State, Colorado/ Initial consultations are free. Hire me, I'm very good. Email me at Franklin[at]Architecture123[dot]com

Unlike most architects, I'm a very good carpenter and have spent years pounding nails and doing every other phase of residential construction.

I'm best at framing, which is the skill an architect should be best at. I can do any phase of construction proficiently except laying brick and doing flat work.

I'm a self taught architect.
I was at the University of Colorado's graduate school of architecture for about 6 months.[ in the first week of school I told my design teacher who worshiped Le Corbusier that Sainte Marie La Tourette Monastery was inexcusable, and it went downhill from there.]

Upon leaving school, I bought and read every book I could find worth reading on architectural design; and those books have been my teachers.

I have dyslexia and related disabilities which have proven an invaluable benefit to my pursuit of architecture which is a nice change from the misery they caused in school growing up.

Most importantly, I have the gift of the Muse. And I have worked extremely hard to perfect that gift.

Comparing my architecture to this blog :
With architecture, I sit down in front of the computer screen and sweat a quart of blood. Where as with this blog, I just sit down and wing it for the sheer amusement of seeing where it goes.

I grew up a exurban flowerchild, [my mother started the first natural food grocery store and restaurant in the city of Denver].

It was a holistic upbringing which naturally lent itself to my seeking the truth which eventually led to my going to Thomas Aquinas College in California, where I discovered the Faith.
The Bl. Mother Teresa commencement speaker graduating class ;-) 1982

TAC taught me to see the world through scholatic eyes.

My wife, Jule, stays home and takes care of the children.

We have 6 children aged from 2 years to 21 years.

We're Catholics .

We're Traditionalists .

We're Aristotelians .

We're holistic organic suburbanites. Our intent is to raise culturally Catholic children in opposition to the culturally materialist environment that surrounds us.

My wife home births, ( Home birth is better for the earth ).

We attachment parent .

My wife ecologically breastfeeds (the way God intended children to be spaced).

We use the family bed .

We, as much as possible, only use and consume Organic foods, clothes, bedding, cleaning supplies, etc .

We recycle as much as we can.

We're Environmentalists because we are Catholic.

We decorate our walls with books, and original artwork, the latter primarily by our children.

We don't have a TV, but we do watch videos .

We do not homeschool, but we do our best to provide a home and outdoor space where our children can creatively learn, perhaps best described as hands off Waldorf.

We send our children to traditional schools to learn the traditional materials they need to know. Anyone who says they enjoy homeschooling is either starting out, or in denial.

We don't live in a wool yurt or two, but would be glad to spend a dozen years doing so.
And someday would like to live in a ferrocement house with lots of fun curves.
In the mean time, we live in a 60's tract home built as an infill into an eclectic neighborhood. We stripped it down and painted the walls and particle board floors as if it was a foamcore model art project.

This blog is a styrofoam free zone.

CONTACT ME for any reasons you please. For instance, write to complain. Complaints are good. Or just to say hello.

I would be very happy to receive your email correspondence. MY EMAIL IS :
Franklin[at]Architecture123[dot]com

Please note : This site does Not adhere to the 'Welborn Protocol'. All correspondence is private. Just as I would naturally assume all my correspondence to be private unless express written permission is given otherwise.

And as noted above. A Warning to the sensitive souls among us who are easily offended, perhaps this blog is not for you.

Although it looks like I'm trying, one way or another, to offend & alienate everyone I know, and everyone else who happens upon this blog, that is not my intent.

I've been banned from enough blogs, primarily Catholic blogs, to know my writing style and my thoughts on matters of interest to me are not always appreciated.

But if you do stay to read my musings on various matters, (and hopefully comment on them), perhaps they will be as helpful to you as they are to me.

While other bloggers are able to put out perfect posts from the get-go, mine start off pretty bad, (some will no doubt think they end that way as well), and so I like to come back and fix them up as I muse about them

Blogs and similar who have banned me :

Catholic Answers Forums

Not so much banned as suspended because of complaints by those who didn't appreciate my writing the war in Iraq was unjust, and when abortifacients were taken into account G. Bush II was 95% pro-abortion.

View from the Right

My offhand remark to a Huguenot commentator that St. Louis' suggestion of the best way to argue with a blasphemer was good practical advice didn't help.

Caelum Et Terra
What really did me in was my defense of entrepreneurs as benefactors by creating jobs for those they employ.

Vox Nova

What finally did me in was suggesting the best introduction to Islam is the St Thomas Contra Gentiles Book 1 chpt.6 article 4

The Lair of the Catholic Cavemen

I only posted one time, writing that one of their commentators was a war monger, but I did get banned for it, so I'm counting it.

And Sometimes Tea

I wonder if my writing the Neocatechumenal Way is a whacked out cult did me in? Or it could have been a shorter version of this post

The American Catholic

and it sure didn't take much, one post is all; the wimps. Read it all here.

Catholic Culture and Society

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The Impractical versus the Practical and knowing where each fits into our lives.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Nursing babies. It's not sexual, but why do most women act like it is?

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Candle light / decorating the Christmas tree

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Not NFP but Ecological breastfeeding

Search This Blog

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The Impractical versus the Practical and knowing where each fits into our lives.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Nursing babies. It's not sexual, but why do most women act like it is?

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Candle light / decorating the Christmas tree

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Not NFP but Ecological breastfeeding

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Search This Blog