Weekend

Hello Everyone,
I am recovering from a middle school retreat. I will post more frequently this week again.

God Bless,

Prayers,

Pisio

Spitzer

In an unprecedented move New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has pardoned himself. Siting that this is purely a personal matter involving consenting adults, he did not believe he should be prosecuted for his victim less crimes.

When asked about the pardon, his wife responded "Victim less my ass".

I guess I just could not let it go. Sptizer disgusts me. The guy went on witch hunts to bring down people involved in the same things that he was involved in. No wonder he was not liked too much. He brought down other people for the same thing, prosecuted them for the same crimes he was committing.

I guess we should not be surprised at the behavior of a member of the same party that brought us Bill Clinton as President. He will more than likely survive this since liberals have short memories, and idolize him for the way he has penalized Wall Street. They will rally behind their moral reprobates and allow them to stay in office. Relativism at its best.

This is the beginning of the decline of the United States. You can go back in history and trace the decay of all great societies to moral relativism. Nothing is wrong, everything is permissible. Unfortunately we are headed down that road now. The saying that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat ring true once again.

I just don't get it... How can people be so lax about other people's destructive behavior? I refuse to tolerate you... I love you too much. Should I tolerate a friend who slowly killed themselves using illegal narcotics, or should I warn them, and point out to them how their behavior is self destructive?

Should I tolerate a friend who is actively engaged in a homosexual relationship, or should I warn them how their behavior is destructive to themselves? Should I tolerate some of the teenagers that I minister to being sexually active, or do I love them enough to warn them how their behavior can ruin their futures? Do I tolerate my wife cheating on me, or do I love her enough to warn how her behavior effects our relationship, and potentially our eternal futures (my wife is not cheating on me however)?

These are all tough questions that we must ask each other, and ultimately the question is do I love you enough to let you know how your behavior can destroy your life? Personally friends, I love you enough to let you know America is heading down a very destructive road. The moral decay of our politicians and society is just a step forward down a dark and destructive road. The United States now is not the United States of 50 years ago, and if we continue down the path we are on now, the United States in 50 years will no longer be.

The power has to be given back to the majority, and taken away from activist judges and corrupt politicians. I believe that we are even given the right/ obligation to overthrow a government that no longer serves We the People.

Eliot Spitzer is not a bad man, he just let his power get to him. Now he appears to be holding on to it to broker a deal to avoid what any one of us would get... a felony indictment/ conviction. That my friends, disgusts me... To quote Jose Maria Escriva.... "Man be a Man"... face the consequences of your actions like a man, not a damn coward...

God help this country...

Prayers,

Pisio

P.S.: I would still rather be in the United States than under any other flag... except maybe the Vatican... glad I am Catholic before American... after all, I was Catholic nine months before I was a US citizen :).

Environmentalism

Is it just me, or does Daylight Savings Time suck? I mean it is 1:30am right now on Monday morning, and my body is telling me that it still has an hour left before bed time. I just can't see how this switch to DST sooner makes any difference other than screw us out of an hours sleep yesterday. I remember hearing that this was done to save energy or something... Then, on the radio today, I hear it has actually caused an increase in energy consumption.

This is just further proof to me that we have no clue what the hell our true impact on the planet is, or how to do anything about it.  We should monitor the situation a few more years, maybe a decade or so, and see what happens. I just think that we rely too much on models to determine what is or is not happening with the climate around the world... The interesting thing about computer models is, if you tweak the data enough you can prove that a giant raccoon farted and created the universe. Models are just numbers, and depending your bias going into the situation, you can manipulate them any way you want. You can include or exclude things form the model that did not fit your hypothesis.

That, my friends, is not science, but more like wishful thinking. Now please do not get me wrong, humans may be having an impact on the global climate. Yet, when the founder of the weather channel calls Al Gore a fraud and hopes the new owners of the station turn it around from a global warming propaganda machine back into a news channel, you have to wonder. Very, very interesting when you think about it... The founder of the weather channel calling Al Gore a fraud, and his own creation a propaganda machine for a hoax. 

It is nice to see an hear stories of more and more scientists calling Global Warming the hoax that it is. They are not well liked I am sure, but generally people who seek truth over fame are not liked well... just ask Christ. The truth about just how much we are affecting the environment needs to come out, but we also need time. Before we start signing bills into law that will cripple our economy, why don't we make sure we have all the data correct. It is important that we do so...

I guess I am just a Conservative Creep right? Right... I just want to make sure that we do not act rashly in regards to the environment. I believe that if we really are killing off the earth, it will fight back eventually... I just don't think that it is fighting back yet. Temperatures now are still not the highest in recorded human history. Generally higher temperatures correspond to greater wealth and prosperity for human kind... 

I dunno... I just guess that the Earth is an organism. If we start to bug the Earth too much, it will get rid of us ...

Anyway, I am falling asleep again, so I need to get to bed.

Prayers, 

Pisio

Teenagers

Teenagers.... I know that a lot of people think that I am crazy for saying this, but I love working with them. They never cease to amaze me. All it takes is someone to invest a little time in them, and the facade of hating adults, being hard heads and just not caring falls away. They actually are beautiful people. They are still naive enough to believe that they can change the world, and they have not yet been corrupted to the point where they are set in their ways. They truly are amazing.

Tonight, we had our Mystery Dinner Theater: The Price is Wrong. Ten teenagers and three adults successfully pulled off a four act play and serving dinner for 90 people in less than two hours. It was a rush. We all worked our butts off, and we all had a blast. We also exposed our Parish, and the Youth Group to a local news caster. He is excited to put together a story on the history of our Parish now!

It is truly amazing how God works through the most unsuspecting suspects:

Angel, she played the lead detective Sgt. Joe Good Friday. Just last year she was a cynical hard head who knew it all. She did not want to be in the Confirmation Class, and frankly I can not blame her. She has been raised in a solidly Catholic family with a solidly Catholic education. What she was being taught in her Confirmation Class was something that she had known since about sixth grade. She could have been teaching it, and the class was an utter waste of her time. Now she has blossomed in to a leader of young people. Our middle schoolers love her, and she returns that unquestioningly. 

Garret, who played Agent 0012 was similar. He came at us more from the logical side of things. He can write things in ASCII code (the code that a computer interprets when you type), binary, hexadecimal and octal. He truly is an amazingly smart young man. His focus is more on the technical side of things, and doing things "correctly". Recently though, he has balanced is need for head knowledge with a faith activated from the heart. He is here to provide a service to the Church that it did not offer when he was younger. He sees the value in what we are trying to do, and bends over backwards to make it happen.

DJay, is a stubborn chap. He reminds me of St. Peter; open mouth and insert foot. His faith is deep though, and he would make several steps farther out of the boat than I would. He has had a harder life than a lot of the kids, losing his mother when he was in his early pre-teens. He has the heart of a servant though, and just wants some positive attention. He likes practical jokes, like locking us out of the kitchen when we need to start serving, but underneath it all he is just a good kid, with a deep faith. I still am not sure why he is here, but I think it has something to do with....

Kate, who just last year was a shy wall flower, disinterested and did not want to do anything. Like Angel, our middle schoolers just love her. She has an outward confidence about her, and she wants to be involved in her Church. Her mother said to me, or my boss, that Katie now wants to be at Church, that something happened to her on retreat with us. She is quickly turning into on of our better leaders. She is willing to make herself look silly as long as it leads someone closer to Christ. 

Becca, is a weirdo... she played Cindy Lou Hoo tonight, and was just a natural. BTW, when I call someone a weirdo, it is a good thing. Christ was a weirdo underneath it all, and fortunately for youth workers it is a name that will always be attached to us. Becca though is really coming out of her shell. She is smiling again, and happy to be involved in something positive. Sure she does the school sports, but there is just something special about doing something for your Church. She knows it, and wants to be there for her peers.

Cassie is the only freshman of the bunch. She is an artist, and loves to draw. She did our fliers and played the power squad with her sister Jessie. The two of them were hilarious together saying that Jesus was their only steroid, and that He could take us all from spiritual zeros to spiritual heroes. What a pair. 

Then, there were our two newbies, Jessica and Henry. Henry played Eminem, and Jessica was a stage hand. They were new to the Parish this year, and just simply happy that someone noticed them and got them involved. Otherwise, they were just faces in their Catechism class. I knew there was something special about the both of them, and they proved me right. Jessica ran our floor and greeted and seated people like she had been doing it for years. Henry was a perfect fit for Eminem and he had those who knew who he was in tears. I am sorry that they were only here for a year. 

Finally there was Logan. I met him tonight. He has been working in Restaurants since he was... well... walking. He is dating one of the girls, but he needed community service hours for school.  He kicked our butts into gear whipping out plates of food and getting them to the tables faster than I have ever seen at a fundraiser. I truly hope that he will stay involved with us. He has a ton of potential.

All in all the night was amazing. They really stepped up, and did what our Knights of Columbus do, but more efficiently and with a Mystery Dinner going on as well. We made about half what we would need to have a decent for the rest of the high schoolers in the fall. Hopefully I can get some young adults I know in Denver to help me facilitate that one. 

I hope that this was little more interesting for you than some of my more recent posts. I have gone away from my candid commentary, but will be getting back into it soon...

Prayers,

Pisio

Amazed

For those of you who have not signed up for, and made your entrecard, you should as soon as possible. It is essentially a blogging business card that allows you to leave your card on other entrecard sites, and others leave theirs on yours. You get to advertise for credits, and people can advertise on your blog by paying you credits. It is a really neat way to publicize your blog. Since joining, my site traffic has exponentially grown. 

Today I had the good fortune of advertising on a site called Bitter Sweet Collide. Alexis and her blog Aiden have a great insight in to life. I truly enjoy her posts. At times, like when she posted about the rain, she and I see eye to eye. She provides insight into  world I will never know, but get to see on a day to day basis. But, advertising on her site has brought me almost 200 visitors alone. 

Any way, I am just amazed to watch my site traffic grow. Yesterday, I broke 200 visitors... Funny to think that just about two weeks ago, my blog was drawing only 10 -20 visitors a day. Now I am averaging 200 page impressions a day.  Entrecard has truly has done wonders for my blog traffic... I am actually making a penny a day on adsense since joining.

Good Luck, and God Bless,

Prayers,

Pisio

Fund Raising

Of all the things I have to do in ministry, fundraising is my least favorite. I am a firm believer in tithing time, talent and treasure. If a church or a parish can not afford a ministry from its Sunday collection and can not afford to fund it at reasonable level within its means, the ministry head should not be expected to raise the funds to do everything else that needs to be done. 

My peer ministry and I are working on a Mystery Dinner Theater in order to raise money for  our Youth Ministry. Currently my Parish gives me no money (aside from my salary) for youth ministry. Now, I am not sure how familiar any of you are with ministry with youth, but it is not cheap. A decent retreat center for a weekend costs around $100 per person for night. Obviously we can not ask families to pay for everything that comes along that is that costly, and families can not expect this expense to be 100% funded by the parish. There has to be some compromise.

In most cases, this means fundraising. For me, as a ministry head that spends about 1/5 of my annual income on ministry expenses, this sucks. I am horrible at fundraising. I just feel like we are begging whenever we ask for things. This year we have the mystery dinner theater to bring the community together a little bit. Unfortunately that means that all other ministry has ceased since we can not expect much more out of the teenagers helping us time wise. They are already giving 1-2 nights a week to the ministry.

This means that all our retreat planning, and issue night planning has ceased while we put on the fundraiser. This is neither healthy for the teenagers who come to pray and share their faith with each other, or for the ministry which is there for their benefit. The focus becomes the money we are making, not our relationships with Christ. I think, for what I have read anyway, that this would be of concern to Him whom we love. 

Christ operated out of Faith. He knew His Father would take care of him no matter what. My theory is that is still true. God, no matter how dark the day, is always there. Is this hard to grasp? That God loves you, and is always there should not be a shock to any of us. I just believe that the Catholic Church needs to return to what made it so great... Christ. In a lot of ways the laity (non-ordained) need to take the Church rather than use it as an excuse for losing their faith. 

Anyway, as I am sitting here typing this I am slowly typing with my eyes shut. I REALLY need to get to sleep.

Prayers,

Pisio

Abraham Lincoln

I was watching South Park tonight, and one of the special guest stars was Abraham Lincoln. Now, Abraham Lincoln happens to be one of my favorite Presidents. I admire his courage and resolve to do not what was popular, but what was right. I really wonder how things would have been different had a spineless goober been in charge during the Civil War. 

There was something different that caught my attention though. Lincoln was talking to Kyle, one of the characters in the cartoon, and he began to talk about character. It was hilarious, and yet profound. It was talking about the resolve ugly people have to have to make it in the world. The pretty people get life handed to them, and as a result fail in life, but those who are ugly have to work through everything. This got me thinking about character more though.

I look at the three remaining candidates for the most powerful position in the world, and realize that none of them has any real character. They are characters, that is for sure, but the stand for nothing. Each one of them panders to who ever is crying the loudest at the moment. McCain is apologizing for things he can not control, and frankly are not even that offensive (see using Barak Obama's middle name (Hussein)). Not much needs to be said about the Clinton's. They change their political positions faster than weather changes in Colorado. You can tell a lot about Obama by who he allows to buy his home. 

What ever happened to good upstanding public servants like Lincoln? Where did they go? It used to be that you would get into office and put your country before your self. Now all these Yahoos are just pandering for votes. When someone honestly and openly examines their, or their opponent's record, wolf is cried and the pressure goes away. I have lost all respect for our country's leaders in the House and Senate. It is like they have no spines, souls or well... balls. 

Conservative talk radio hosts, like Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin and Sean Hannity take a lot of crap for standing up to these weenies. That I can admire. With Rush, the Great One, and Hannity you know what you are going to get. The same is actually true for those on the left as well like Alan Colmes. Regardless of what your stance on the issues are, you know you are going to get open, honest dialogue with these guys. Why won't any of them run for office?

I guess they are just too honest for modern politics. Sad but true. It seems modern politics attracts the dredge of society rather than our best and brightest. Oh well... maybe someday, hopefully soon we will get another Reagan. I hope so, for the sake of little Michael.

God help this country.

Prayers,

Pisio