Well, it's Friday the Thirteenth! I'm not superstitious, because it's bad luck, but I do like the idea of Friday the Thirteenth. I love all holidays, observances, commemorations, traditions, and special dates, as my last post attests.
To mark the day, you might want to read this post from ten years ago (yikes-- that's scary in itself!) on https://irishpapist.blogspot.com/2013/10/some-spooky-credit-sequences.html?m=1 spooky television title sequences.
Speaking of spooky things, I actually watched a horror movie last night: Burnt Offerings, a sort of haunted house film from 1976, starring Oliver Reed, Karen Black, and Burgess Meredith. I remembered it from my childhood; for years, myself and my brothers had a memory of the "smiley chauffeur", an unspeaking character who makes a few brief (but very memorable) appearances in the film, and who terrified us. We didn't even remember the title, which I only worked out recently. The film is pretty good.
Incidentally, I was recently corresponding (for work purposes) with an academic from Sacramento, who recognised my name from reading this blog! That cheered me up, since I'm increasingly unsure whether anyone reads it. The blog statistics have never been very helpful; I think they mostly track bots.
I rarely get comments any more. I won't go on moaning about this. I know one reader has been unable to leave comments for a long time and others may had this issue.
I'm wondering if I've alienated some of my former readership. There has been a lot of polarization in the Church recently and, unlike many of those who share my general outlook, I've refused to align with the Cardinal Burke/Archbishop Schneider/Cardinal Sarah camp. Not that I don't share many of their anxieties. I do. But, at the same time, I believe that the Holy Spirit is still very much in charge of things. I'm also unhappy at the manner in which this faction has increasingly embraced a sort of surly oppositionalism, and even questioned the validity of Vatican II. I'm not going down that road. I'm a JPII boy all the way.
Or maybe it's not at that at all, and I'm exaggerating the importance of my opinion to anyone.
In any case, this blog has been going so long that, in my mind, it's become a tradition of its own, and I hope to keep it going as long as I can.
I still check in regularly and read everything. What I most appreciate about the site is your appreciation for the everyday. You don't make the ordinary seem extraordinary (a notion I'm a bit sceptical of). You make it appear likable because it is ordinary. 98 per cent of our lives are ordinary, so this seems to me very important.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Anonymous. This made my day!! And I completely agree with you about the ordinary. I don't want it's ordinariness to be abolished. I want it to be loved for what it is, and indeed for me to love it for what it is music. Thank you
Delete(I don't know how "music" got in there...)
DeleteStill my favourite blog, ten years and counting. An oasis of sanity, as exemplified by your sixth paragraph. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, Dominic. That accolade means a lot to me. Reason to keep writing it in itself!
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