Sign Of The Times: Writings of Joseph J Sardo

the purpose of this post is to make you feel something, even if it is in spite itself. meaning, what I'm writing might suck, but maybe just maybe if you choose to read through all of it (and it shan't be long), something might hit you in such a way as to lead you down a positive path of enlightenment of some kind. whether that discovery is major or minor, life-changing or day-changing next time I try this, I won't have to explain what I'm doing I'll just go straight into it the pulse of my heart right now just seems to be Positivity. approaching the Springs of living Water that I believe God left us and guides us to through the Church that Jesus Christ left the world. dang, did I just alienate some of my readers? I hope you'd be willing to see me thru this brief journey for me, lately, watching some Catholic/Christian programming on my TV screen has helped me a lot staying connected to the Truth I believe in. also, watching some of my favourite musicians d

"I feel like lining up everything I own... and getting rid of it all. But it's tough." ~Me, re-phrasing City and Colour's lyric ...Especially when some things that you own -- or perhaps better said, own YOU -- are not a physical possession or a consumer good... but a habit, a tendency, it's something spiritual and unseen, and can be hard to identify, name, and conquer. It's like we're stuck in a daze or caught under a spell of mediocrity at times. It's like a life sentence to only be like 45% as happy as we are capable of. Dang For me right now, I've been struggling with specifically Christ's invitation, command, and challenge to give everything away. I feel on a spiritual level what this means for me and it's hard. It's also funny to be feeling this so strongly right after I made my last blog post on the beauty of this invitation that Jesus gave us. It's like the intensity of the invitation went up closely after, and I'

"I feel like lining up everything I own... and deciding what should stay and what should go."  ~City and Colour, "A Pill For Loneliness" A moment ago I became convinced -- again -- that Jesus invites us to complete and perfect happiness when he says: "Go, sell your possessions... and come follow me." I have so many CDs. I often don't know which one to take with me when I go out. (And, yes, I listen to my music this way still.) I have a "pile" of likely over 100 CDs and feel no particular way about any of them at times. Sometimes I buy 3 or 4 or 5 at once and end up confused as to which one I should even start listening to. Buying one would have been better. But I bought too many. Do we see the brilliance of "sell all your possessions"? Can you see its spiritual, not necessarily strictly literal , meaning? The Bible speaks of lambs "fattened up for slaughter" (James 5:5), also of a man who "stored everything i

Claim:  Everything that is fun is sinful! Possible response: If we are willing to be honest, we might agree that there are a lot of things that might be fun "at first" but ultimately lead to a sense of shallowness, emptiness, depression, and even misery.  If we are even more honest, we may have gotten a lot of our ideas of fun, such as drinking, partying, and sex from media and what others have done before us. We simply haven't tried any "other ways" and assume this is the only way to have fun.  To be in friendship with God doesn't exclude fun, but might suggest that there are other ways of enjoying these gifts. There are other beverages, there are other ways of celebrating, and there are proper ways of using God's designs like sex that may lead to greater fulfillment.  In these cases, I tend to think we are a lot more like one who has always lived in the dark claiming there is no such thing as light, rather than one who is tryin

"Everybody's talking and no one says a word." ~John Lennon I disagree with strong rage against Donald Trump because if we live in such a world where he could be elected President- that's on all of us and not just one man or those who voted for him. It's time we take some accountability for the fallen world we live in. Any lack of love you give - even tiny - ripples and contributes to something negative, and vice versa for goodness, kindness, and peace. Many of us claim we are "good people" and have as deep a morality as "As long as you haven't killed anyone." But do you kill people's spirits? When you ignore, put down, cut off, envy, and are angry with your neighbour you kill their spirit. Physical murder ends life, but murdering the spirit can shatter a living person- making them wish they were dead, and sometimes, going through with it themselves. Same with school shooters, bullies, whatever it is. If you find yourself pointing

Let's lose our minds and go crazy crazy- like a moth to a flame So don't get me wrong. I actually like both of these songs. But I'm still going to sort of "critique" them from a lyrical standpoint and challenge the current thematic elements of so many modern pop songs. 2 pop songs The two songs are "Cake By The Ocean" by DNCE and the other is "Cautious" by Tyler Shaw. The first is from a few years back (2015) but the Tyler Shaw one is quite current and isn't exactly a massive hit song or anything but it is getting radio play. My thesis My basic thesis in blunt form is that the lyrical themes of modern pop almost seem to worship sex and "dangerous" romantic encounters where we are called to "give it all", even to a stranger - even if it's "dangerous" - just "let it all go", "go for it", it's worth the risk baby baby, let's do this. We take it for granted but I think it