The Catholic Perspective

God’s Gift

Friday, July 25, 2008

God has created everyone different and presents different blessings to each person. From my personal life, I would like to talk about my own struggles, and about a comment Michael Savage had made recently. Let me start out by presenting some background.

Five years ago, I was a sophomore in college struggling with many of my classes. My major problem in my classes were completing exams. It took me two times longer to read passages and organize my thoughts to write it down. As well, the many times it took me just to concentrate on the task of completing the exam. After about twenty years, struggling through classes, having people incorrectly interpreting what I’m trying to describe to them, and not being able to understand why I cannot hold back my thoughts, I was formally diagnosed with dyslexia and attention deficit disorder.

Looking back further, my mother took me to many psychologists for years. In that time, they all diagnosed me with attention deficit disorder, and all were partially correct. I remember, as a child, feeling inferior to other children. In elementary school, I was placed in special education courses for English and Writing. As for the other courses, I was in normal classes. Many children saw I left the classroom during those times, and teased me because I was absent. I remember it took me twice as long to read and analyze the reading assignments at school. Eventually, I stopped placing effort in all school related activities.

In fact, ran away from my problems with school, and I didn’t want to attend school any more. After graduating from high school, I enlisted in the United States Navy. Eventually, that was cut short because after boot camp I received a medical discharge. At this point I had no other choice but to go to college.

Let’s fast forward to my sophomore year of college. My fiance and I were at Barnes and Noble, she was looking through a medical psychology book and found a description of the many problems she saw me struggling with in school. It indicated that I was dyslexic. At that point, I wanted to investigate the possibility of being dyslexic. I used school resources to examine if I was dyslexic. At the end I was discovered to be dyslexic with attention deficit disorder.

For a long time, I felt that God had cursed me. Why can I not function like everyone else? I found that I had a high intelligence quotient, but I am only processing at 2/3 of my full potential. After getting more time on my exams and some projects, my grades improved. I went from a B/C student to a A/B student. It was great, but I still felt inferior; the fact that I needed the extra time and a special room to take my exams did not help my self-esteem. “God has given me a curse”, is what I would think for a long time. Eventually I graduated from college and started to work.

More problems have came up from my disabilities. People look at me and think I am a “know it all” or an arrogant person. In business, it is not enough to only be competent in the work given, but also learn to interact with people. WHY, GOD? To learn to be humble is what I have learned. I had the guts to start going to confession after ten years and now I have to suck it up and go to the doctor. Today, I am now on some medications to help me with my attention deficient disorder and he recommended a book to help me with my confidence and self-esteem. In the last few days, I have had more restraint and am trying to focus on holding back from freely giving my ideas out. I am already having some change in my interaction with others.

I write this post for people to try to at least understand the problems that people face with learning disabilities. I found some positives to being dyslexic that many people may not know about which are:

• Perception: the ability to alter and create perceptions;
• Highly aware of the environment;
• Highly curious;
• Great intuition and insightful;
• Thinking and perceiving multi-dimensionally (using all the senses);
• A lively imagination;
• Can experience thought as reality;
• Creativity;
• Easy adoption of change;
• Holistic, see the big picture, don’t get lost in details, get to the important aspects;
• See patterns, connections, and similarities very easy;
• Concentration;
• Can be very driven, ambitious and persistent;
• Superior reasoning;
• Capable of seeing things differently than others;
• Love for complexity;
• Simultaneous multiple thought processing;
• Not following the crowd;
• The ability of visual, spatial and lateral thinking. [1]

Although I have a lot a positives, I also have quite a bit of problems such as:

• Have difficulty taking notes or copying
• Difficulty with planning and writing essays, letters, and reports
• Tendency to read inaccurately, or without comprehension
• Inconsistent spelling
• Tendency to confuse verbal instructions
• Confuse phone numbers
• Severe difficulty with learning a foreign language
• Difficulty with perception of spoken language, e.g. following instructions, listening comprehension
• Low self-esteem. [2]

God has shown me that I need to be humble and to know that I need help. Today I have received help and am relying more on others to help me. Today, I found only through working with others will make me successful, more so than any “normal” person. Since I need people to read or repeat or scribe what happened in the meeting.

The other reason I created this post was to comment on Michael Savage[3] thoughts about people with learning disabilities as being a shame. It made me think about myself and how hard it is for me from day to day to function at work or school. As Catholics, we learn that with adversity comes understanding. I hope from this small example of my life and problems, people will understand what people with learning disabilities go through in life without having knowledge as a child.

I also want people to understand that we have become a society that is too polarized. A society that everything is night or day. People like Michael Savage present facts incorrectly and people listen to him because it is easy. They don’t see the people like myself that could have been caught earlier and had more time to deal with my disability. I was a child that thought I needed to suck it up and school was not my thing. I later learned it wasn’t and I want to learn more everyday. His comment, even if he thought people took it out of context, was a sign that he is incompetent as a doctor (PhD). As I recall, doctor means teacher. As any good teacher one has to do extensive homework, before making comments as Savage did, only to confuse the ignorant. As well as educating the masses in what potentially can cause the problem in the first place.

I found it ironic that Savage called for parents to chide a child with autistic tendencies to “act like a man,” given that many leading researchers consider autism to be an extreme manifestation of the male brain. In fact, one theory that’s attracting attention is that fetuses that produce high levels of testosterone in the womb have a tendency to exhibit autistic behavior as young children. And it seems to me that the messages society directs toward boys about “sucking it up” could actually exacerbate any tendencies to withdraw. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest count, the prevalence of autism among boys is between 2.8 and 5 times that of girls. [4 ]

God has given me a true gift. As with any gift, one just has to learn to use it and overcome its difficulties. As we all need to grow everyday, we should understand that everyone is here for a reason.

Posted by Catholic Chump on 07/25 at 11:00 PM | (1) Comments

Category: |General||Health| |

The Culture Of Death

Saturday, July 19, 2008

In the last week, I have been debating with Mary Kochan from Catholic Exchange. In our back and forth comments, I have formed some conclusions about politics and priorities of people. If you have already figured out, I am not a theology major nor a political science major. So please excuse the verbiage since I most likely will not be using terms that may not be politically correct. I am very versed in law. Since, I was an economics major investigating some time in pre-law at one point. As mentioned before, I will place my own catholic perspective in this post. My major point in the post is as catholics we cannot stop at only abortion or just prioritize abortion first then other evils such as the death penalty later. We must be firm in our pro-life stance.

All the following comments are from Mary Kochan that I will address piece by piece:

Well for one thing your feeling that they are both wrong does not constitute Catholic moral theology any more than someone’s feeling that gay marriage is ok. The fact is that in Catholic moral theology they are not the same: one is intrinsically evil; the other is not. Feel away all you like. I will be perfectly happy to seek the end of the death penalty after abortion is ended.

AND

Chump, the death penalty is not intrinsically evil. Sorry, but it is church teaching that the death penalty may be applied in some cases. It is not Church teaching that all applications of the death penalty in the past were grave moral wrong. The Church and the pope do not use the same moral language about the death penalty as they do for abortion.

In the catechism it does state :

[2267] Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor… Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically non-existent.”

As in law, we have to look at the historical significance of the death penalty. Before jesus’s time, criminals were given death, were a danger to society and at that time had no other means to restrain that individual. As the catechism says today that is not the case. By supporting the death penalty you may today be killing an innocent life or worse a person that may repent with enough time that may be another lost soul to fall short of the kingdom of god. We should vote for people that will not support abortion, death penalty and euthanasia. Any form of death should not be over-sighted. As Catholics, we should only vote for those who hold all of our principles, not a few. As I stated in the past the few politicians such as Ron Paul are for these principles. Mary lacks the vision of the power we as citizens have as she said:

“This notion of vote for the person, not the party, simply shows a lack of understanding of the way our system works and the current status of party politics in the US. Voting for a person of any party strengthens that party regardless of that person’s own views. Pro-life Dems are completely shut out of influencing their party platform right now and have been for about 20 years. Their party is also dedicated to the judicial usurpation of power that led to Roe v. Wade and to making sure it does not get overturned.”

In America we have had many parties evolve and change from the time of the founding fathers. People have to look at the problems and rise up in the voting booths. With statements like:“Pro-life Dems are completely shut out of influencing their party platform right now” people will only steer our country into a one party dictatorship. We need to have hope just as we have faith in god. We need to hope that we can change that by voting for the people not the party. It is this thought that is weakening American and strengthening one or another party. It is this idea that people cannot see eye to eye on the issues. By making statements like this is what weakens America. We cannot think of right now, but how can we change the parties and America tomorrow. Remember it is not what America can do for you, its’ what you can do for America.

I hope this post will spark discussion and get better candidates for the future. I would like to see the incumbent party running against the incumbent in office. If that is what America wants by getting both sides standing up against the their own party to show real strength. In many cases may cause some to leave the party to run as an independent. The people need to learn not to vote within party lines but to vote for the individual who is the best fit for the job.

Background:

http://www.catholicexchange.com/2008/07/17/113173/

Posted by Catholic Chump on 07/19 at 10:13 PM | (1) Comments

Category: |Politics| |

Catholic Perspective: The New Frontier

Friday, July 11, 2008

New Content! Well, not yet. I am trying to add some spice to this blog. In the next month, I plan to add some new features that many other catholic blogs do not implement today. As you have already noticed I have been podcasting; the next step would be networking through social networks.

One feature that I plan to release in the next six months to a year is a bible study application through facebook and google (I don’t discriminate). It will start out simple. By simple, I mean the widget will only search through the entire New American Standard Bible. After I get that far I plan to release a means to annotate collaboratively. I hope with suggestions and a lot of hard work I can make this a reality.

Another feature I was thinking was to add a pay-pal account that would be tax deductible. If you remember a couple posts ago I spoke about Carl Anderson’s book “A Civilization of Love”. I went into a little rant about charity, if I can recall. I am a person of action, but feel that I can not be the alone in this. so I figure that I can get my readers to donate. Since this is America and not some totalitarian blog I would have a vote of the top ten charities I am familiar with and give 90%-95% of that money to the charity while leaving a little for funding this blog.

Finally I was thinking to have catholic professionals to post their thoughts not just my own. I would try to get a lawyer, doctor, and priest post something once a month. Like having a guest star on the blog once and a while. Now this is only the beginning of my ideas, but I would like some more suggestions.I need your suggestions to make this site go the next level. Please leave a comment of any ideas you can think about and we can take The Catholic Perspective to the new frontier.

Posted by Catholic Chump on 07/11 at 11:00 AM | (0) Comments

Category: |General||News| |

Institutions are perfect, people are not

Friday, July 04, 2008

Posted by Catholic Chump on 07/04 at 08:21 AM | (0) Comments

Category: |

The Catholic (Green) Perspective

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

America is dead last when it comes to conserving resources. I am not going to make this blog like the many about be green or else. I would like to talk about the benefits for becoming green and why as a good catholic it is in our best interest aside of the financial payback it would bring to our lives.

In the book Go Green, Live Rich the author David Bach presents us with many ways to save money as well as save the environment. I like to present this book because it provides a lot of simple suggestions to live green while not breaking the bank. I will present the benefits from a practical perspective. First what we can do at work since most of our time is spent at work or driving to work. The next section I will talk about what you can do around the house to save money. Finally I will talk about the catholic perspective of being green.

Work

At work we can save tons of money and lower our energy. The first thing we can do is make sure your tires are completely inflated it will create less drag and increase gas efficiency. Other small hints that people should already doing is change your oil every 3-6 thousand miles, accelerate slower to get to your desired speed. Some more obvious ways of saving energy is getting a hybrid car or a gas efficient car. You can also see if your work allows you to telecommute and work from home. Thus saving hundreds of dollars in gas driving to and from work. Before you print any documents at work do you really need that hard copy or can you make due and not waste paper needlessly? One final tip I will leave you with is bring a bag lunch. It will save you from eating out and the extra waste you create because of the packaging. As well in relation to my last post about health, you can eat healthier when you go to work and try to walk a half an hour especially if you work in a office. Fine, some of these tips will not personally help your wallet, but help your company save money unless you work for yourself then it will make a difference.

Home

In our homes we have a lot we can do to save us all money and stop spending needless resources. The first thing you can do is plant a couple of trees around your home. It will lower your house’s temperature in the summer and keep it warm in the winter by deflecting wind. Another thing you can do around the house is make sure you do not have a water leak in your house. A small leak on average can cost your house anywhere from 10-20 dollars or more, in extra water charges. Other things you can do is buy organic and less meat. Fact is there is many ways in the house to save money while lowing the amount of resources you use. I would recommend picking up the David Bach book and any of his other books.

Faith

In the last post I mentioned the sin of gluttony. In this post I will mention the sin of sloth for not caring about the world we live in that god created for us to take care of it. Sloth is a state of being indifference or laziness. In our lives it is a sin of putting off what god wants from us. Being green is not only helping everyone, but following the teaching the church has for us.

In our faith, we should look at taking care of the world god has given us. In general as Catholics or just citizens of the world we should take care of our planet. We should pick up after ourselves and try to recycle as much as possible. A couple a few things I learned from David Bach is:

• The aluminum cans we throw away each year use up the equivalent of 16 million barrels of oil, enough to fuel a million cars for a year.
• Takeout food creates 1.8 million tons of trash in the US every year.
• 40% of all car trips are less than 2 miles.

Given these last tips I will leave you with some things to think about. We should show empathy for all that we do in our lives and try to think of others instead of being apathetic to the things I mentioned. God Bless.

Posted by Catholic Chump on 06/25 at 07:10 PM | (0) Comments

Category: |