General

Lydia's Example of Faith

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One of them, a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, from the city of Thyatira, a worshiper of God, listened, and the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul was saying.

After she and her household had been baptized, she offered us an invitation, “If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my home,” and she prevailed on us.

Lydia is an interesting figure in Acts. She was a ‘woman of God’, and she ‘listened’ when Paul spoke. She heard and understood, and within her heart the flame of knowledge quickened. She invited the missionaries to stay with her, opening her home to them.

She was the first European convert in Paul’s 2nd missionary journey, and was a dealer in purple cloth. Her work required considerable capital, as purple dyes were quite expensive and purple cloth was used for such things as the stripes in Roman Senator’s robes. So Lydia was faithful and emminently successul in working through the ways of the world. In other words, like many early Christians she was wealthy. And the European Church more than likely first convened in her living room.

One often considers that success in the world precludes true faithfulness or growth in holiness. However, nothing could be farther from the truth. To put it humorously:  It’s good to give God credit, but He needs cash too.

Remaining faithful amidst life’s trials is rarely as trying as remaining faithful during times of great success, when our minds and lives are wont to wander and we consider that perhaps we don’t need God since after all we’re succesful. Lydia is one of the many holy woman of the Bible who demonstrates great faith amidst a life of wealth and success.

On The Feast of Catherine

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 I love St. Catherine of Siena, and here are some quotes to live by:

“To a brave man, good and bad luck are like his right and left hand. He uses both.”

“Strange that so much suffering is caused because of the misunderstandings of God’s true nature. God’s heart is more gentle than the Virgin’s first kiss upon the Christ. And God’s forgiveness to all, to any thought or act, is more certain than our own being.”

Pax Christi…

Young, Pretty … Hostage


Support free speech on the internet. 

Help to free beauty queen journalist Roxana Seberi, being held hostage in Iran replete with sham courts and false charges. It’s a Blue Ribbon event.
 
This from an Anestheisioboist:

A group of bloggers is holding a blog rally in support of Roxana Saberi (who is spending her birthday on a hunger strike in Tehran’s Evin Prison) and of others who have dared to express their thoughts freely only to be imprisoned, abused, or killed.

Please consider placing a blue ribbon this week on your blog, website, and facebook / myspace / twitter page, and invite others to do the same, in honor of the journalists, bloggers, students, and writers who are imprisoned in Evin Prison (nicknamed “Evin University”) and other prisons around the world for speaking and writing down their thoughts.

Officials in Iran need to know your concern for Roxana Saberi and your desire to return her home, and while she is in Iran to have a fair appeals process.

Write to:
His Excellency Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee,
Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran
622 Third Ave.
New York, NY 1007
e-mail: [email protected]

To read samples of Roxana’s reporting, click here.

Heavy Restrictions on Internet Freedom

This from Fox News via the EFF.

The days of an open, largely unregulated Internet may soon come to an end.

A bill making its way through Congress proposes to give the U.S. government authority over all networks considered part of the nation’s critical infrastructure. Under the proposed Cybersecurity Act of 2009, the president would have the authority to shut down Internet traffic to protect national security.

The government also would have access to digital data from a vast array of industries including banking, telecommunications and energy. A second bill, meanwhile, would create a national cybersecurity adviser — commonly referred to as the cybersecurity czar — within the White House to coordinate strategy with a wide range of federal agencies involved.

The need for greater cybersecurity is obvious:

— Canadian researchers recently discovered that computers in 103 countries, including those in facilities such as embassies and news media offices, were infected with software designed to steal network data.

— A Seattle security analyst warned last month that the advancement of digital communication within the electrical grid, as promoted under President Obama’s stimulus plan, would leave the nation’s electrical supply dangerously vulnerable to hackers.

— And on Tuesday the Wall Street Journal reported that computer spies had broken into the Pentagon’s $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project and had breached the Air Force’s air-traffic-control system.

Nonetheless, the proposal to give the U.S. government the authority to regulate the Internet is sounding alarms among critics who say it’s another case of big government getting bigger and more intrusive.

Silicon Valley executives are calling the bill vague and overly intrusive, and they are rebelling at the thought of increased and costly government regulations amid the global economic crisis.

Others are concerned about the potential erosion of civil liberties. “I’m scared of it,” said Lee Tien, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based group.

“It’s really broad, and there are plenty of laws right now designed to prevent the government getting access to that kind of data. It’s the same stuff we’ve been fighting on the warrantless wiretapping.”

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va, who introduced the bill earlier this month with bipartisan support, is casting the legislation as critical to protecting everything from our water and electricity to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records.

“I know the threats we face.” Rockefeller said in a prepared statement when the legislation was introduced. “Our enemies are real. They are sophisticated, they are determined and they will not rest.”

The bill would allow the government to create a detailed set of standards for cybersecurity, as well as take over the process of certifying IT technicians. But many in the technology sector say the government is simply ill-equipped to get involved at the technical level, said Franck Journoud, a policy analyst with the Business Software Alliance.

“Simply put, who has the expertise?” he said. “It’s the industry, not the government. We have a responsibility to increase and improve security. That responsibility cannot be captured in a government standard.”

…

Warning bells for liberty should be resounding in our minds.

Fr. Kenneth Allen