Posted on 09/02/2011 9:07:47 AM PDT by marshmallow
Minneapolis, Minnesota (CNN) –Prior to 2006, few people even knew that then-Minnesota state legislator Keith Ellison was a Muslim. Because of his English name, he said, no one thought to ask.
But five years ago, when he ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives - a race he would go on to win - word of his religious affiliation began to spread.
“When I started running for Congress it actually took me by surprise that so many people were fascinated with me being the first Muslim in Congress,” said Ellison, a Democrat now serving his third term in the House.
“But someone said to me, ‘Look Keith, think of a person of Japanese origin running for Congress six years after Pearl Harbor–this might be a news story.’”
Though Ellison's status as the first Muslim elected to Congress is widely known, fewer are aware that he was born into a Catholic family in Detroit and was brought up attending Catholic schools.
But he said he was never comfortable with that faith.
“I just felt it was ritual and dogma,” Ellison said. “Of course, that’s not the reality of Catholicism, but it’s the reality I lived. So I just kind of lost interest and stopped going to Mass unless I was required to.”
It wasn’t until he was a student at Wayne State University in Detroit when Ellison began, “looking for other things.”
(Excerpt) Read more at religion.blogs.cnn.com ...
If yo’ mama thinks that her suffering earns her access to heaven, that’s terrible, IMHO.
If she views it as something which, combined with — oh, how can I express this — a continuous reaching for the hand of IHS will — struggling for words here — be like swimming toward the middle of Ezekiel’s river which flows from the temple and spreads life all around ... the middle where the flow is deepest and strongest, then she may well have a point.
Though our emotions and moods depend on what we eat and do and on our internal chemistry, if repentance and humility are not accompanied with confidence and joy, even sometimes a grim merriment, then IMHO we’re doing it wrong.
For that there is only one remedy: to cast oneself before the throne of mercy.
How’s that for an answer? Is it okay?
You're just saying that because it's true.
Then stop practicing it in defiance of Scripture. It's not too late to abandon pride and give yourself to God.
Yep, I can’t understand why anyone would hold that scum bag up as someone to follow. I suppose he learned that during his days as a Catholic.
Actually it is the antiCatholics that do it. How would Calvin learn after he died how to hold Calvin up as someone to follow. Your diction, your logic and your theology are equally dismal.
Even so, how many days journey do you think 50 miles or 120 miles was in the 4th century?
When you are one of these spacemen who consort with space aliens, you just beam there right out of Star Trek. Who cares, anyway, when you believe that the world will end in 2012?
More idiocy. I explained that generation in the context (as in generation to generation) that I wrote it meant that a whole new generation had been born and that the Church realized that things had better be written down for future posterity since Christ had not come back and might not for some time.
I had expected better of you.
Christians have it one way. Space alien worshippers have it another.
And nobody could possibly know this except for you. Congrats.
GIVEN that I'm the ONLY one who does that, thanks for calling me a cretin. It only adds to my Heavenly rewards.
I think that calling Mary Ishtar will provide all kinds of Heavenly Judgements.
Yeah. Maybe. A little. :-)
I like this post. I'm going to think about it today.
Since I first stumbled across this mumble mumble years ago (1973, actually — is that scary or what?) I have thought that it was a place where Paul was reaching to express something beyond expression. It is just WRONG to say that anything is “behind” or “lacking” in the perfect suffering of our perfect Lord. Yet he says it.
My rule is to appreciate, to dwell in, such seeming paradoxes, to eschew “explaining away” baffling expressions. I try instead to “abide” with them, to let them “work” as though I were kneaded dough and they were yeast.
(You know, if you want the gluten to come up, there's no way around it but to knead for a quarter of an hour or so. Then there's not much one can do to speed the rising either. You just have to let things work. For it is God that worketh in the dough, both to will and to do for His pleaure and our rising.)
Anyway, thanks. Good eats! Chewy!
That's not fair... :)
One thought: My beloved atheist Episcopal friend (! No. Really. Stop laughing!) said to me that “you Catholics) are all about the crucifixion, while we Episcopals are about resurrection.
I snippily replied, “If you don’t see how, at this present time, the two are identical, you understand neither.”
Put THAT in your incense burner and smoke it!
Show it to me from the scriptures...I've got the weekend off...Is that enough time for you to find it???
Which translation of the Bible do you use?
The Arians on this forum are notoriously shy when it comes to proof.
I remember well how nearly all things Catholic, except Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, Eckhart, and Hopkins, gave me the creeps. Even after I swam the Tiber ... I was in a traditional style church and saw the tawdry statuary and suddenly thought, “WHAT am I doing here?”
Many “cradle Catholics” don’t appreciate this tool of the enemy’s. It’s powerful. Unreasoning revulsion sure delayed my entry, while great saints still beckoned and, I have to think, prayed on my behalf.
Enough chatter. Prayers!
You’re welcome to go to any UU meeting if you want...
I assume that there is a point to this post.
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