Two Lent Ideas

 How's your Lent going? If you feel like you're not making progress here's two fantastic helps for your

 spiritual journey in these precious days. The Great Fast program from St. Michael's Abbey and Fr.

 Edward Looney's daily readings from The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. 

A few truths that surprised me when I was younger

 

• Canadians aren't all that nicer than anybody else. In fact, after years of reading Canadian news articles and the comments responding to them  I was shocked many, many times. Americans are raised to revere and sympathize with Indians. Average guy and gal Canadians expressed criticism, annoyance and downright disgust about their tribal people. I've read things that shocked me. A whole lot Canadians aren't fond of Indians from India have some downright aggressive things to say about Jamaicans as well. 
  
  
  
  
  
• The biggest racists I've ever come across were not Southerners.  Most of the time it's New Yorkers, Bostonians or folks from Chicago. The ones in my age range tend to be people who survived the bussing era and are still pissed about being forced to be social experiment victims. 
  
  
  
  
  
• Never mind what the travel gurus tell you, stay in the tourist areas when in foreign countries and seriously rethink that Third World trip.   

• One of the easiest ways to irritate the boss ladies at your parish is to volunteer for whatever group the ladies run and make a suggestion. At my old parish it took death, retirement and relocation and a strong pastor to  tame the boss ladies  had and make them be friendly towards new people joining. 

• Accepting and obeying your doctor's every word could get you killed or at least affect your health. I've met  doctors who disliked and evaded questions about treatment. I assume medical students are given a class on gaslighting before graduating.  Once I asked  a former primary care physician   whether it was worth taking a low dose aspirin each day, something that the medical profession has been pushing for decades. The doctor looked uncomfortable and told me no, and that doctors never recommended this. It was just a thing popular culture came up with. That was the problem of Googling and doing your own research, she said condescendingly. Well research is my business.  Being a librarian I checked Mayo, Johns Hopkins, JAMA and the American Medical Association who all spoke of daily aspirin therapy and the pros and cons, confirming what I'd seen and heard for as long I could remember  and  I never went back to that doctor's office.