This is awesome!

This little fellow looks as if he is ready to take off running!

P.S. Please realize that this is probably an enhanced shot. There are so many tissues between fetus and the outside world, that this actually impossible. You would see a bump, but not the actual foot outline.

I think it is easy to feel that nothing good is going on this our beloved fatherland, the USA. Along with the rest of the developed nations of the world, she kills her own innocents in abortion, taxes the livin' daylights out of her people, disrespects women, permits various crimes against humanity, has elite classes of people who have special privileges, and endorses numerous other attrocities. I am ashamed to say that I am often too quick to complain about these and other things. It seems that one common divider amongst Americans is the war in Iraq, the War on Terrorism. Yes, there are evil things going on, and thousands of people have been killed unnecessarily (God have mercy on them!). Would this happen anyway, even if the US military were absent? Perhaps. We just wouldn't know about it. However, whether or not we approve of the war and it's ideas, we should not let that influence our opinion of the soldier and his sacrifice. I was shocked when I met someone a while back who did not support the war, and therefore refused to pray for the soldiers or the government. I don't support abortion, but I still pray for abortionists and their aids. They are sinners like everyone else in the world, for crying out loud!

Our soldiers give up an aweful lot of goods in order to protect their countrymen and other innocents. No soldier likes to leave his family, face death every day, find mutilated corpses in the streets, watch orphans hunt the streets for food, or see terrorism/hate victims so badly mangled that they are not recognizably human. He cannot stop to say a rosary at any moment; he cannot play ball with his budies; chances are he cannot even take a walk to self-reflect. These things tax a soldier and put an intense spiritual and emotional burden on him, to say nothing of physical difficulties. That burden may persist for the rest of his life, a shadow across his mind that he will never be rid of. It is very tempting to engaging in immorality of some sort just to get away from pain and lonliness for a few minutes. Please pray for our soldiers, especially those overseas and away from their dear ones. Being a true man, strong in his convictions and certain in his love for God is not always easy, but is even more difficult when surrounded by the discouragment and hardship of war.

Our Lady, help of Christians, pray for our servicemen and women.

My New Temporary Home, and The Faith of Children

Well, I'm all moved into my new appartment, and it is a funny appartment at that. An architect would love to come and laugh at the different time periods and styles in the house. The building was built in 1930s to house the steel mill executives in the Ohio Valley. My appartment includes 80s wood flooring, late '50s bathroom fixtures, '70s tiling, '40s oven/range and metal cupboards, and various odd peices of furniture and accesorys. The fuse box is funniest of all, with only 4 switches, one for each room and a main switch. It is cozy though, not suffy, and has plenty of windows. Since it is in the basement, my window looks right at the grass. I am fascinated by basements, since we don't have them in the Virginia tidewater. If we did, they would be flooded more times than not. Whenever I had little dreams and fantasies during my childhood, I would dream about basements. Almost until I went to college, I thought they only existed in books. =) Now I'm living in one, under the rest of the building. Here's hoping the 70 something year old hunk of steel and other materials doesn't decide to colapse just when I'm living under it! O Lord preserve me!

Naturally, I have not confided this rather insignificant fear in any of my family members. Joseph would probably go balistic. When I first went to college and he found out that I was sleeping on a top bunk without a rail, he prayed every night that "Lord, please don't let Naomi fall out of bed, and hit her head and be killed. But if she does, please let her go straight to heaven." Ah the practical and eternal faith of children.

"The Terrible Beauty of John Paul II"

This is a pretty good article about our late holy father, John Paul II.
It is long, and you do have to keep reading it once you start. She is a feminist, but shows that JPII touched many more people than the millions of faithful Catholics in the world today.

http://www.thescreamonline.com/commentary/comment5-1/johnpaul/PopeJohnPaulII2.html