Perhaps because of this inclement weather, I have felt really tired today. I've been trying to cut back on the amount of Diet Mountain Dew I drink, holding myself to one can per day. This morning, I had my allotted can, but by lunchtime, I was falling asleep. I am currently chugging down my second can of Dew. I'm perking up a little bit, but I still can't quite get up to speed. My mind is working about three bulbs short of a chandelier. I'm hoping I'll get a second wind soon.
Being from a "mixed" marriage--I was raised Catholic, my wife is Methodist--I appreciate More's ideas about tolerance. I've never made a big deal with my daughter about the fact the we go to "Daddy's church" on Saturday and "Mommy's church" on Sunday. It's just church, and it's all about Jesus. When my daughter gets a little older, maybe she'll start asking questions and making choices. But, in a perfect world, maybe in Utopia, such distinctions wouldn't really matter that much. American Catholics are notoriously liberal in their religious beliefs. Most Catholics I know wouldn't have a problem with married priests, or female priests, for that matter. Every Catholic church I know has some kind of support group for divorced Catholics nowadays. The world really has changed since Thomas More wrote Utopia. Yet, we still argue about the same things. Despite his radical ideas, Thomas More became a saint. He was a man of his time and a man of the future.
In my life, I've had to stand up for a lot of things. My father almost didn't come to our wedding because we got married in the Methodist church. (He eventually did come, because we had a Methodist pastor AND a Catholic priest performing the ceremony.) Many members of my family still struggle with my wife's mental illness and sexual addiction. Rather than taking up love and compassion, they take up stones to throw. My life is far from utopia. Modern society will never be utopia. I know that. Thomas More knew that. But, in my own actions, in the choices I make each day, maybe I make the world just a tiny bit better.
It's all in our hands |
Saint Marty raises his Mountain Dew to Saint Thomas More.
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