Take Up and Read: Follow This Link: a spray of links and quotes

Reminds me that spring and summer will come, even if there is still lots of snow outside

I am trying to get back in the habit of regular blogging, at least while Chari is busy (she is working 2 X 12 hour shifts in the next couple of days, please pray for her!).

Today I don't have too much to say. I spent some time reading blogs this morning, which was fun after such a long time away from my Reader. Vicky at Creating with Wisdom is putting up lovely lesson plans and lists, including one about confident unschooling; her sister Sue Elvis shares stories about her grown homeschoolers and her struggles with living her vocation, Sarah at Amongst Lovely Things shares pictures of her beautiful children and a weekly meme to help you redeem your online time, not to mention a link to a beautiful post by Elizabeth Foss at a Mom-blog I hadn't seen before called Mom Heart Online.

I've already spent a lot of time on this post and only linked to 4 blogs! I really miss my Google Shared Items -- it was such an easy way to bookmark and share favorite posts, and "sharing" by posting a link to my Google + account isn't at all the same thing. But since I've started this post as a link list, I think I will list a few more and then maybe tomorrow I will actually come up with something to say.

The Unschooling Catholic e-group was discussing habits recently and while thinking about habits and what they REALLY are I found this article about Aristotle's view on Habits. I am reading it slowly, and this part struck me because it deals with something I've often wondered about:

The moral life can be confused with the habits approved by some society and imposed on its young. .... When a parent makes a child repeatedly refrain from some desired thing, or remain in some frightening situation, the child is beginning to act as a moderate or brave person would act, but what is really going on within the child? I used to think that it must be the parent’s approval that was becoming stronger than the child’s own impulse, but I was persuaded by others in a study group that this alone would be of no lasting value, and would contribute nothing to the formation of an active state of character. What seems more likely is that parental training is needed only for its negative effect, as a way of neutralizing the irrational force of impulses and desires.

This post on Google Brain from Eide Neurolearning, one of my longtime favorite blogs, isn't exactly related to habits, but it discusses another issue that interests me and that I was just discussing with one of my older sons -- whether the internet, in enouraging a habit of speed-processing, is changing our brains for the worse. The article brings out the potential positives in the habit of speed-assimilation.

Finally, a few theological posts to round things out. At The New Theological Movement there is a really interesting reflection on the Fifth Joyful Mystery as a foreshadowing of the Triduum; and since I have been thinking a lot about Mercy, here is a consideration on whether Mercy or Justice is greater in God.
He quotes Thomas Aquinas, who says:

So in every work of God, viewed at its primary source, there appears mercy.

At Reflections on the Philospher Pope there is another thought on Divine Mercy (and forgiveness) taken from Pope John Paul II's last will and testament. I thought this was a beautiful prayer for the end of life:

I desire to follow Him, and I desire that everything making up part of my earthly life should prepare me for this moment. I do not know when the moment will come, but like everything else, I place it too in the hands of the Mother of my Master: Totus Tuus. In the same maternal Hands I leave everything and everyone with whom my life and vocation have linked me. In these Hands I leave, above all, the Church, as well as my Nation and all humanity. I thank everyone. Of everyone I ask forgiveness. I also ask for prayer, that the Mercy of God may appear greater than my weakness and unworthiness.

Well, I will leave it there for now! Aidan is asking for popcorn.