Thank you, thank you, thank you, Lord!

This past Saturday, I braved the elements and went to the St. Louis Perpetual Adoration Chapel for an hour with Jesus in His Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament. While I was there, I tried what I like to call "The Joanna Method" of prayer. What I mean by that is this: when we say our night-time prayers before we go to bed at night, we all say something for which we are thankful from the day. When it comes to Joanna's turn, she is thankful for EVERYTHING - puppies, pictures, walls, doors, you name it and she has probably covered it!!! Of course, part of her motive for doing this is to prolong the prayer time so as not to have to go to bed. But it is so sweet, and it is a beautiful reminder for me of just how much our Lord gives us, and how dependent we are on Him for literally everything.

So, while sitting before our Lord (I just couldn't kneel the whole hour, sorry), I tried this method, with the added twist of not simply naming things but really thinking about why I would be thankful for such a thing. I started with the obvious: "Thank You for buildings, Lord; it's really cold out today, and buildings are a wonderful way to keep warm." I went on through all the things that I could remember that Joanna is usually thankful for: doorknobs (which made me remember a quote from a Vietnam vet who was a prisoner of war: "There is no such thing as a bad day when there is a doorknob on the inside..."), windows (how nice it is to be in a warm building and still be able to enjoy the beauty of the snow), as well as flowers, carpets, colors, etc. I added a few things that she does not normally think of (members of my family, being thankful for each one in turn; Jesus in the Eucharist, although to her credit Joanna has named this before; the whole set-up of the Church and the ministries that she promotes that Jesus left behind for us to know His love; etc.) I spent most of the hour engaged in this "specified thankfulness" prayer. It was actually very spiritually uplifting; so I wanted to recommend it to anyone who has never thought of trying it.

Have a great day!

Oopsie!

In the entry I just posted, I accidentally said that my dad would whisper to calm down "drink" people instead of "drunk" people. I really do read over my posts before I publish them - so why is it that I never see typos until it's too late to change them? That's a really annoying tendency.

Be vewy, vewy quiet

I have been trying to recuperate from a bad congestion/fever episode from last week, and still can't talk because of all the coughing that has just worn out my throat. But I have noticed that many of the people that have talked to me over the past few days start whispering, too, when they are talking to me. They start out speaking in their normal voice, but gradually get softer and softer. It's like I'm conducting an unofficial science experiment: documenting cases of sympathetic whispering. I have actually asked a few people, "So, I know why I'm whispering, but why are *you* whispering now?" Inevitably, the person doesn't even realize that they have started whispering; they just automatically start to match my tone of voice. My dad told me once that, when he was in teh Navy and sometimes had to do stints as MP during tours of duty, he would be told to whisper to drink people in order to calm them down because they would automatically and unconsciously match the tone of voice of whoever they were talking to. I guess the technique works for anybody. And there's your weird science fact of the day!

Great Pro-life Ads

There are some really good pro-life ads on the National Right to Life website, http://www.nrlc.org/onlinebrochures/Downloadables/Ads.htm, pictures of which I tried earlier to get on my blog. I am not technologically savvy enough to do that, apparently. But I will give a verbal descirption of my favorite:

It is called "Excuse Me America." At the top of the ad is a box of Kleenex, and at the bottom is am ultrasound picture of a baby. Underneath the Kleenex box, the text reads: "Excuse me, America. This is tissue." And underneath the ulrasound, it says, "This is not."

Simple, elegant, effective, beautiful. I loved it!

Doctor's Office Health Screening Quiz

Well, I had a good laugh today at the doctor's office. While I was checking in, the receptionist asked, "And how are you today?"

I just laughed and said, "This must be your secret health screening quiz, huh? If a person says 'fine,' they have to go home?" She agreed that perhaps it wasn't the best question to be asking at a doctor's office.