I Know You're Out There Somewhere

Another Moody Blues song, I Know You're Out There Somewhere ...

I Know You're Out There Somewhere" is a 1988 single by the progressive rock band The Moody Blues. It was written by guitarist Justin Hayward, and it is the sequel to the Moody Blues' 1986 single "Your Wildest Dreams", also written by Hayward .... The song's lyrics continue from the lyrics of "Your Wildest Dreams". The lyrics from "Your Wildest Dreams" tell the story of a man who is remembering his first love, and wonders if she remembers him the way he remembers her. In "I Know You're Out There Somewhere", the man realizes he still loves her, and vows to "return again" to her.

I should add that in an interview Justin said this about the song, which was kind of ironic ...

Songfacts: The song "I Know you're Out There Somewhere," is that about somebody in particular?

Justin: Yes. It was about somebody in particular. And I found with "Wildest Dreams" that it was a common experience for a lot of people. I never thought this; I thought I was writing a frivolous sort of song. Certainly with "Wildest Dreams." Not with "I Know You're Out There Somewhere," because I knew by then. But I thought "Wildest Dreams" would be a throwaway thing that people wouldn't really take much notice of lyrically. But I found out that it was a common experience and desire by a lot of people. So that was very revealing.

And with "I Know You're Out There Somewhere," yes, they both were about at least one particular person. I wouldn't say it was all about one person, but at least one particular person. And my advice to anybody who wants to go back is that you can never go home. And best to leave the past as the past.

Here's the music video for the song - it's pretty fun :) ...

Defend, don't defund, Planned Parenthood

Remember the 2015 controversy over misleading under-cover videos by an anti-abortion group purporting to prove Planned Parenthood was selling baby parts? I wrote about it here: Liar, liar, pants on fire

In the news today - Antiabortion activists face 15 felony charges over undercover videos that targeted Planned Parenthood

I won't be surprised if some Republican and conservative Catholic sites have stories about these "heroes" of the pro-life movement, but they are anything but heroes. Learn more about them here ...  Who’s Behind the Planned Parenthood Sting Video? Troy Newman—and Other Rabid Anti-Choicers. What you don't read about as often is that there are many Catholics who are *for* Planned Parenthood ....



More: Editorial Note to Republicans: Drop the crusade against Planned Parenthood ... and ... States with more Planned Parenthood clinics have fewer teen births and sexually transmitted diseases ... and ... What It Means to Defund Planned Parenthood

Blue World

The latest Moody Blues song I've been listening to is the 1983 Blue World ...

:)

Bill Maher comments on the death of the Republicans' health care bill ...

Restoring faith in human nature

With so much badness happening, from terror attacks to Republican schemes, it's helpful to remember that there are still good people with kind hearts out there .....

Out in the yard

A strange day today - warm but cloudy. I can hear the ice cream man going by in his music-playing truck ... it plays Scott Joplin's The Entertainer :) I walked around with the cats and the camera. Here is Olive giving Socks in the distance the gimlet eye ...



Here is a plant pot with some violets and oak balls ...



And here is Thor trying to nap on a dead tree stump. He looks like a wooly chameleon to me :) ...

The War of the Worlds & Forever Autumn

Who knew there was once a musical made of HG Wells' book, The War of the Worlds? I read the book when I was a kid, but I mostly remember the story from the Tom Cruise movie version.. The musical, from composer Jeff Wayne, was apparently quite popular in the UK and I came across it while in my continuing obsession with the Moody Blues, as Justin Hayward sings one of the songs in the musical: Forever Autumn ...

Wayne wanted to include a love song on the album that sounded like "Forever Autumn", and he decided that the best course of action was to simply use the original song. Hayward, of The Moody Blues, was hand-picked by Wayne to sing it (because, Wayne said, he "wanted that voice from 'Nights in White Satin'"), and it was recorded at London's Advision Studios in 1976. The song reached #5 on the UK Singles Chart in August 1978.

Here's Justin doing the song, from BBC Four ....



The summer sun is fading as the year grows old,
And darker days are drawing near,
The winter winds will be much colder,
Now you're not here.

I watch the birds fly south across the autumn sky
And one by one they disappear
I wish that I was flying with them,
Now you're not here

Like the sun through the trees you came to love me
Like a leaf on a breeze you blew away

Through autumn's golden gown we used to kick our way
You always loved this time of year
Those fallen leaves lie undisturbed now
'Cause you're not here
'Cause you're not here
'Cause you're not here

Like the sun through the trees you came to love me
Like a leaf on a breeze you blew away

A gentle rain falls softly on my weary eyes
As if to hide a lonely tear
My life will be forever autumn
'Cause you're not here
Cause you're not here
'Cause you're not here

Tuesday Afternoon

Still more Moody Blues :) Here's a1969 version of Tuesday Afternoon, live at the Jazz Festival in the Belgian city of Bilzen ...



Tuesday afternoon,
I'm just beginning to see, now I'm on my way
It doesn't matter to me, chasing the clouds away.

Something, calls to me,
The trees are drawing me near, I've got to find out why.
Those gentle voices I hear, explain it all with a sigh.

I'm looking at myself reflections of my mind,
It's just the kind of day to leave myself behind.
So gently swaying through the fairyland of love,
If you'll just come with me you'll see the beauty of

Tuesday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon.

Tuesday, afternoon,
I'm just beginning to see, now I'm on my way.
It doesn't matter to me, chasing the clouds away.
Something, calls to me,
The trees are drawing me near, I've got to find out why.
Those gentle voices I hear, explain it all with a sigh.

Finding Jesus

I guess most Catholics are not very into historical Jesus stuff? I don't understand why that's so.

Last year at this time CNN had a special series, Finding Jesus. I paid attention for a number of reasons, including that some interesting people were involved ... Mark Goodacre, David Gibson, Candida Moss, Ben Witherington, James Martin SJ, and Michael Peppard. I wrote a few posts about it back then and I mostly liked it, although I found the stuff about the Shroud of Turin pretty disappointing in that it seemed to give some hope in the authenticity of the shroud despite all evidence to the contrary (even David Gibson, who I think of as conservative, described the shroud as a 13th century forgery).

But anyway, the series is back ... Finding Jesus ... and it looks like it's dealing with some interesting stuff again. Duke NT professor Mark Goodacre has an article on the show. Here's a bit of it ...

The Historical Jesus: Separating Fact from Fiction

[...] Goodacre, a professor of New Testament and Christian origins in Duke’s religious studies department, helped plan the series and served as the production’s lead fact-checker. He also appears in each episode along with other scholars of early Christianity. “The big worry about any documentary in our area is, ‘Will it be sensationalist? Will it represent my field badly?’” Goodacre said. “The nice thing about this series is that it is robust academically, as well as being good TV.”

The series blends reenactment with scholarly commentary. Each episode homes in on a key character or location that figured in Jesus’ life, examining what contemporary scientific evidence, history and archaeology reveal about the world of the historical Jesus. For instance, an episode about Pontius Pilate considers physical evidence about the man who ordered Jesus’ crucifixion. In this case, the archaeological record contains rich sources, including coins minted by Pilate, Goodacre said ...

Here's a trailer for the series ...

What I've been doing

I haven't posted much lately for a number of reasons. I've been feeling kind of blah physically, and also it's really spring/summer here and that means more time away from the computer doing yard work. Here's Thor enjoying the 70s weather ...



And when I do get to the computer, I've been obsessing over the Moody Blues. Looky here at another of their songs :) ...



But that doesn't mean I haven't been paying attention to the Catholic news ...

Remember my post about the last of two sex abuse survivors leaving the pope's sex abuse commission? Well, apparently the head of the CDF, Cardinal Müller (see my post Cardinal Müller, Klaus Mertes SJ, and Spotlight ), has disputed her view of events and now she has replied to that: Exclusive: Marie Collins responds to Cardinal Muller's allegations about abuse commission

And I thought this was great - John Oliver visiting the Dalai Lama. He and the Dalai Lama speak in part about the Chinese effort to co-opt Buddhism, and it's interesting that China has been trying to do the same thing with Catholicism in China. But anyway ... ....



I just need to perk up a bit and get back to posting more.

Never Comes the Day

Today I saw a promo video from 1969 for the Moody Blues' song Never Comes the Day that I had never sen before. I think it's from the BBC Sessions series ...

No, the Pope won't allow married priests

In the news: Here’s What Pope Francis Actually Said About Ordaining Married Men

Some news outlets are stating that the Pope is considering allowing married men to be priests. Unfortunately, I think this is untrue. The Pope didn't bring the subject up. He was asked by an interviewer from Die Zeit about the possibility of married men to help with the priest shortage and the Pope responded that "voluntary celibacy is not a solution". When pressed by the interviewer about ordaining "viri probati" ... men already married and of proven virtue ... the Pope prevaricated, saying "We need to consider if viri probati could be a possibility. If so, we would need to determine what duties they could undertake, for example, in remote communities". This sounds like he envisions married men as having different duties than actual priests.

This is not unlike the news last year about the possibility of women in the church becoming deacons. The issue wasn't brought up by the Pope but by some Women Religious who asked him why women could not be deacons, given that there had been women deacons in the early church. He said that a commission could be created to study the role women deacons had in the past. People were excited, believing that the Pope had decided to let women be deacons. Nope. And nothing has and nothing will come of that commission's work (see It's time to be honest about Pope Francis and women for more on this).

Pope Francis is not a progressive reformer trying to liberalize the church against the wishes of a corrupt curia (ok, yes, the curia is corrupt, but that's another discussion). Francis is a social/moral conservative. He believes that marriage for LGBT people is against God's plan, he has been dragging his feet on fixing sex abuse, he has said that women can never be priests in the Catholic church.

And given this, I am sure that, despite the fact that the original disciples, including Peter, were married, despite the fact that in the early church priests and even popes were married, Francis won't allow celibacy to be voluntary. Why not? So many reasons, but I think the two main reasons are ... the church doesn't want to pay priests with families a living wage .... and ... it is easier for the church to control a person's life when that person has no other loyalties except those owed to the institution.

More Moody Blues

A health care plan I can get behind

Justin Trudeau Announced a $650 Million Plan for Sexual and Reproductive Health on Women's Day



O Canada! :)

The future of the dotCommonweal commenters

As I wrote the other day, Commonweal has closed its dotCommonweal blog to comments and many of those who did comment are wondering if some new venue for a continuation of their discussions might be found. I don't know if anything will come of that, but it made me think of my own online interactive history.

When I first started using the internet, about the late 90s, I was trying to write a novel. I had never written one before and I didn't really know what I was doing but being online helped a lot. One of those helps was a writer's BBS. It was a large online community composed of a few writers who had published books, many more who had published articles, and those who wanted to learn. There were forums for every topic and genre and also what were called challenges. A challenge was a contest one could enter in which a genre, topic, and word length was chosen and everyone wrote a short story to compete for winning. We had to read each story and critique it too. I still have some of the short stories I wrote for the challenges in a blog here.

I was there for a few years and one of my fellow writers, a Quaker, asked me to join his bible blog in 2004. I had never blogged before but I gave it a try. We would all read the passage chosen and write a post about it. Then we'd usually comment on the other people's posts. It was pretty fun and I learned much more about the New Testament that way. Some of those old posts still exist. You can read one of mine here - Crystal on the temple cleansing

Many of us eventually dispersed to create out own blogs and that's what I did, starting this one in order to concentrate more on Catholic stuff. This was kind of the heyday of blogging and before long I fell in with a group of other Catholic bloggers. It was a lot of fun to post on various topics and visit other people's blogs to discuss it all. I learned a million times more about Christianity in general and the Catholic church in particular by investigating issues to post about. And I got exposed to many different points of view via the other bloggers. A blog that was very helpful academically ... the NT Blog hosted by Duke NT professor Mark Goodacre.

Sadly, blogging waned as FaceBook and Twitter appeared and now I only have a few blogging buddies left. I guess that's when I began spending more time at religious sites where one could comment .... America magazine, National Catholic Reporter, The Tablet, and dotCommonweal. I didn't really fit in anywhere but I sort of settled down at dotCommonweal and endured despite the many times my comments got deleted ;)

Don't know what's coming up in the future for me or for the other commenters at dorCommonweal, but I will stick to blogging here if only for my mental health ... they say it's good for you to journal, even if no one else ever reads what you've written. What I post about has changed somewhat and I don't ever get many comments these days, but thanks to SiteMeter, at least I know people are visiting :) ...

Thinking of the Moody Blues

- Justin Hayward

I've seen them twice in concert, once when I was in high school and once when I was married :) A couple of songs ...

Here's one you don't hear as often as some of the others ...



The Story in Your Eyes

I've been thinking about our fortune
And I've decided that we're really not to blame
For the love that's deep inside us now
Is still the same

And the sound we make together
Is the music to the story in your eyes
It's been shining down upon me now
I realize

Listen to the tide slowly turning
Wash all our heartaches away

We're part of the fire that is burning
And from the ashes we can build another day

But I'm frightened for your children
That the life that we are living is in vain
And the sunshine we've been waiting for
Will turn to rain

Listen to the tide slowly turning
Wash all our heartaches away
We're part of the fire that is burning
And from the ashes we can build another day

But I'm frightened for the children
That the life that we are living is in vain
And the sunshine we've been waiting for
Will turn to rain

When the final line is over
It's certain that the curtain's gonna fall
I can hide inside your sweet, sweet love
Forever more

And here's another lesser known one of theirs ...

Goodbye dotCommonweal

When your friends ignore you pic.twitter.com/qeo9uzbd7l

— Emergency Kittens (@EmrgencyKittens) February 22, 2017

The dotCommonweal blog has done away with the option of commenting on posts. For years I've visited there to discuss the latest Catholic news, political news, social news. Feel sort of homeless now and I will miss the exchanges :(

Vlad and Jeff

SNL had a bit last night in which Jeff Sessions inhabited Forest Gump's persona ...

Republican healthcare fail

John Oliver explains the nightmare of the Republican alternative to Obamacare ....

World Wildlife Day

This #WorldWildlifeDay, take action to protect our planet’s most vulnerable creatures & the Endangered Species Act: https://t.co/JZhsI9FCjq pic.twitter.com/Bb7JOAvugx

— NRDC (@NRDC) March 3, 2017

More yard photos

Mouse keeping me company ...



Some yellow flowers ...



The plum trees are blooming ...





And some 'rooms ...

Sessions & the Russians

John E. McLaughlin, former Deputy Director of the CIA and former Acting Director too (now a Distinguished Practitioner-in-Residence at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University) discusses Jeff Sessions meeting with the Russians and the situation all around that ...

The dream

I just finished watching an episode of the tv series Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. which really touched me. At this point in the season's story-line, many of the characters have been forcibly put into a simulated environment called the Framework which is sort of like a holodeck, their bodies restrained but their minds existing in a virtual reality, unaware it's not real, a reality in which all the things they have regretted most in their actual lives hasn't happened. A reality where they are simply happy.

I was just thinking about this earlier today ... what would my life have been like if the things that have been the most painful hadn't happened after all? Who would I be if my father hadn't abandoned us, if I hadn't been diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease just after college, if my husband hadn't divorced me? A different person? A happy person? Is there something wrong with wanting that?

In the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode, a couple of the characters have evaded being put into the simulated environment and they are trying to extract the others, save them and restore them to their real lives. And one of the characters who has been in the virtual reality but is now out decides she would rather die than go back to a life devoid of the pain that made her who she really was.

Remember The Matrix? There's a part where Agent Smith tells Morpheus that the machines tried simulating a perfectly happy virtual life for their captive human population, but that no one would accept that ...

Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world where none suffered, where everyone would be happy? It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed that we lacked the programming language to describe your "perfect world". But I believe that, as a species human beings define their reality through misery and suffering. So the perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from.

And remember Star Trek V: The Final Frontier in which the characters have the chance to have the pain they carry taken away, but Captain Kirk tells the others he needs his pain ...

Damn it Bones, you're a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can't be taken away with the wave of a magic wand. They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don't want my pain taken away! I need my pain!

But I guess I don't really buy this trope. Maybe this is just a story we tell ourselves ... that suffering builds character, that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger ... because we're powerless to change things, because we need a narrative that allows us to go on living in this world where there's so much suffering.

At the end of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode, we see those characters who are in the simulated environment .... Daisy in a life where the man she loves is still alive, Phil in a career as a teacher helping kids instead of as an agent getting people killed, Mac in a life where his baby daughter didn't die after all ....



Why can't real life be like that? It should be.

PS ... the music that so well fits with the final scene of the episode is from On the Threshold of a Dream by the Moody Blues.

Pope's sex abuse commission continues to crash and burn

On this Ash Wednesday, some news about Pope Francis' sex abuse commission: Abuse survivor quits pope's commission citing 'shameful' resistance ...

A leading member of a group advising Pope Francis on how to root out sex abuse in the Catholic Church quit in frustration on Wednesday, citing "shameful" resistance within the Vatican. The sudden departure of Marie Collins, an outspoken Irish woman who was the last remaining survivor of priestly abuse on a Holy See commission, was a major setback for the pope, who has faced criticism of not doing enough to tackle the problem ...

As I wrote here in 2014, the Pope is really failing on the issue of sex abuse. His abuse commission has been powerless - all the commission can do is make recommendations and the Pope has ignored those recommendations. A recent example ... the commission asked him not to approve Chilean bishop Juan Barros, alleged to have covered up sex abuse, but the Pope didn't listen. Riots ensued. Marie Collins was the second of the two sex abuse survivors on the commission to leave it - the other, Peter Saunders, was forced out of the commission for speaking up about its failure.

Read Marie Collins statement on why she left the commission: Exclusive: Survivor explains decision to leave Vatican's abuse commission