Year-End Review

 Although it is officially still the beginning of December, I feel it is appropriate both in concord with my schedule as well as just practically speaking to do my year-end perspectives.  There are many things about 2023 I am glad to see go, some I will miss, and others I will just build upon.  So, let us start the conversation and see where it goes.

On a broader level, 2023 has been a challenging year for our nation - with godless Democrats still wielding power, the economy in the US is worse than it has been in a long time.  Then, our government's own failures in East Palestine, OH, as well as in Maui, compounded with the fact we have Establishment hawks beating war drums to provoke World War III in either the Pacific or in Eastern Europe, have made many people somewhat disillusioned.  Add to that the failure of "woke" policies, which are still being pushed on us despite the fact they are increasingly unpopular and also just stupid.  I get sick of hearing about what "pronouns" to address people with, especially when an obviously male individual puts on a dress and wants to be called "her."  Thankfully, "woke" ideology is being shown for the failure it is - the huge corporate example of Bud Light is a case in point.  For those who may have been blissfully unaware of that issue, several months ago Bud Light hired a freak named Dylan Mulvaney to be its "spokesperson," and that proved to be a disaster for the corporation.  Dylan Mulvaney is a gay man who all of a sudden decided he was a woman, and he did so in a very ridiculous way - for instance, glorifying tampons (which most real women would not dream of doing) and acting like a real horse's ass in the public arena.  The most recent thing about Mulvaney is that while he is still identifying as "her," he decided he was attracted to women and wanted to get pregnant!  So, here is the thing - a guy who likes girls (normal so far) decides to be a girl (getting weirder), and then says he wants to be with a girl (he wants to be Chris Hayes in other words, a male lesbian??), and wants her to get him pregnant!  By this point, a normal human being is probably ready to beat their head against the wall trying to figure this all out and is muttering "what the hell???"  But, for the leftist elitists, it is perfectly natural (these are the same people who engage in "puppy play," or "furry culture," a sexual fetish where a person identifies as an animal like a dog).  My advice is to just cynically mock it for being obviously ridiculous and go on with your own life - the freaks and weirdos of "wokeness" will destroy themselves in due time, so I don't let it worry me.  Any rate, that, as well as a clinically senile President who has all the cognizant ability of a Christmas cactus, is where we are at in our nation.  However, it is also important to remember that ultimately God is in control, and in the end everything works out for the better one way or another.  It is just one hell of a ride getting there. 

It is true that to some degree our individual lives are a microcosm of the society around us, and in the case of the economy, that has been very apparent this year.  I have faced probably what is one of the most intense financial situations this year I have had in a long time, and to be honest I was really caught up in uncertainty.  Having limited income, my financial situation has affected even my basic expenses, but overall things are starting to come together now which is good.  A realization came to me just a month or so ago when a friend of mine I was praying with observed that God is telling us to contend for what is rightfully ours, as there are forces out there trying to destroy us.  I need to clarify some concepts in this, because by contending for what is rightfully ours, I am not speaking of the heretical "blab it and grab it" garbage that people like Kenneth Copeland and Joel Osteen teach millions of gullible people. What I do mean is that for things you have rightly achieved and earned, one should be entitled to stake a claim on that.  For example, let's say you are due a settlement from something that would be a significant amount.  Legal documents and correspondence have confirmed you are to receive that compensation, but there is bureaucratic red tape and other issues tying it up while you may be struggling just to make your rent or mortgage payment every month.  The bureaucratic structure holding the benefit back is a hindrance orchestrated by the enemy, and there needs to be an offensive launched to reclaim what is rightly yours.  The difference between this and the "blab it and grab it" teaching is a fundamental one - in the right case, it is an asset you know about, are aware of, and is technically yours as established by legal authority.  In the case of the "blab it and grab it" mentality, those people are telling you to "claim" things you may not have a right to, nor may you actually need - for instance, "claiming" a fortune of millions of dollars and a Rolls Royce is stupid and not grounded in reality, unless you legitimately acquired the fortune and it is being held back by some hindrance.  Also, no one needs millions of dollars or a Rolls Royce, and Philippians 4:19 tells us that God supplies our needs and not some crazy obsessions.  When my friend and I discussed this, it made perfect sense, and we both began to reclaim what was taken from us, and within a week or two later, I get this letter from my university saying that I was awarded additional financial aid, and it could not come at a more perfect time - I was behind on my rent, and was struggling to figure out how to take care of holiday expenses and other things, and God provided for that.  The same week, I also got another unexpected blessing too.  A devout Catholic donor who was of some means wealthwise had decided he was going to bless a number of Catholic people with a very beautiful gift.  So, around the first of November I get the notification that I was having two huge packages delivered to me by Fedex.  I was puzzled by that, as I had not ordered anything, so it made me very curious.  Turns out the packages were a very beautiful Nativity set that this guy had bought several of and was sending out all over the nation to different people, and somehow I was chosen to get one.  This was not a little set either - each piece was over 25 inches high, and the whole set together weighed 42 pounds.  I have the beautiful set displayed now in my living room, and my prayer is that whoever the person was who blessed me with that will be abundantly blessed as well, as that individual has a good heart and he may have made a difference in many people's lives.  Any rate, as I write this now I have a very good outlook for 2024, and if I have learned anything in the past couple of years, it is that I don't have any choice but to trust God - somehow, he always comes through, even when I get upset and impatient waiting on him.  That was something for the year I wanted to share and hopefully it will be an encouragement to others. 

As far as my doctoral work goes, at the end of 2023 I am officially in the dissertation phase of my program now, which translates to almost being at the finish line.  I am honestly very happy about that, for I can officially "retire" from school after being constantly working on my education for well over 50 years now - that is taking my whole academic history from kindergarten to the Ph.D.   It has been a lot of work, and with drafting the dissertation and anticipating revisions, I still have a bit to go yet, but I will get there.  At this moment, I have 5 of the 7 chapters (about 200 pages) of my initial draft done, and will be working on the last two chapters starting in January.  If I keep up the pace, I may finish strong and can have a "Dr." in front of my name by this time next year.  It still amazes me how far I have come, and again, it is by the grace of God I have done so well.  In addition to my Ph.D. program, I have also done coursework in German language (which I needed for approval to advance to the dissertation phase), as well as earning a certificate in Podcasting and successfully completing a Tax Preparer course through Jackson Hewitt.  I am currently also finishing up a course in Tagalog I am taking for personal reasons (all in good time, but I will have an announcement at some point next year), and may pursue some software programming and Montessori education coursework to enhance my marketable skill set.  I will be busy for a while, but the good thing is that this coming Saturday I will be seeing some fruits of my effort, and I will share that now. 

A few months back, there was a call for papers to be presented at a small academic conference over in Charles Town dealing with the Catholic contributions to American History.  The chief organizer of the conference, author and historian Stan Williams, is a major researcher on the whole Wizard Clip legacy that plays an integral role in West Virginia Catholic history.  The Wizard Clip incident happened in the late 1700s at the site of the conference, a retreat center operated by our parish called Priest Field, and essentially it is a story of evangelization and conversion.  A Lutheran farmer who had settled the area was having some issues with unusual phenomena occurring on his property, and he sought the counsel of a Catholic priest, Fr. Gallitzin, to remedy it.  Fr. Gallitzin, if I remember the details correctly, came and performed an exorcism on the property, after which all the weird manifestations ceased.  Moved by this, the farmer and his family converted to Catholicism, and history was made for the Church in West Virginia.  On my other blog, I documented the Wizard Clip story a couple of years ago, so feel free to read that if your interest is piqued (also, it will clarify any errors here that I may have accidentally made in the facts).  The conference for me will entail presenting a paper on the significance of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and it is a topic I did the same paper for as a class project back in 2016 for a Mariology course at Steubenville.  I am a little nervous about my first conference participation as a speaker, but it is experience that is crucial to my career, so I gladly take all opportunities like this as God providing me some background which will benefit a possible instructor position later.  I may or may not create a post on the conference next week - we'll see how the schedule goes. 

We also had a few tragedies as well - I lost three finches this year, and Barbara lost her cat Mallory in September. Mallory was originally her sister's cat, but when she passed away in 2020, Barbara adopted both Mallory and her brother Mickey and brought them back. Both of these cats are really old cats too, as I still recall when my ex-sister-in-law got them in 2008 and they were adorable kittens.  Mallory had been declining healthwise for several months in that somehow she had sustained a nasty injury to her jaw and it became infected - the infection spread into her body, weakened her, and that is what I feel took her out.  Mickey is still alive and very healthy, but Mallory is now resting in her final spot in the back yard.  Any rate, it was a loss, and I am sorry for Barbara that it happened. 

There are many more details I could share, but I am on a tight schedule with many things I need to do as well, so we'll have to talk about those some other time.  Thank you for allowing me to visit with you virtually, and my prayers for a blessed holiday season for each of you who read this.