Children | Authors-choice: Hope & Revival

The world is lying to us and to our children, says Dr. Hahn

3 09 2017

“Just recently I was listening to this expert therapist on radio, Dr. Ruth telling a 15yrs old boy who had called in to tell her that he was having sex with his 14 yrs old girlfriend and all she could ask him was, ‘is it safe sex? ‘”
” I felt like shouting,’ Woman, tell him to save sex for marriage!!'”

“When he told her that he was using some kind of contraception and she crackled , ” Oh that is so good ‘”

“I was like, ‘Woman, he is a 15yrs old fornicating with a 14 yrs old.”

“When I was 15,” continued Dr Hahn, “Canbery soup was good, not fornication!”

“When he told her, he was using contraception, she said that was great!”

” No it’s not, “said Dr. Hahn, “When I was 14, flakes were great, not contracepted fornication.”

“Our kids are being lied to. Sex isn’t good, it’s not even great. IT IS SACRED.”

With these and many more stories, Dr. Scott Hahn inspires us on how to build successful families.

“World Congress of Families, 2015”

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Tags: Children, Family, How To Save Your marriage
Categories : Faith, Family, fatherhood, Happiness, Marriage, Motherhood, Sexuality

A TRUE STORY: Boy In Love With a Telephone Operator

12 03 2016

Telephone operato and the boy

When I was quite young, my family had one of the first telephones in our neighourhood. I remember well the polished oak case fastened to the wall on the lower stair landing. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I even remembered the number—105. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother talked into it. Once she lifted me up to speak to my father, who was away on business. Magic! Then I discovered that somewhere inside that wonderful device lived an amazing person—her name was “Information Please” and there was nothing that she did not know. My mother could ask her for anybody’s number and when our clock ran down, Information Please immediately supplied the correct time.

My first personal experience with this genie-in-the-receiver came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbour. Amusing myself at the toolbench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn’t seem to be of much use crying because there was no one home to offer sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway. The telephone! Quickly, I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver and held it to my ear. “Information Please,” I said into the mouthpiece just above my head. A click or two, and a small clear voice spoke into my ear. “Information.” “I hurt my fingerrr—” I wailed into the phone. The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience. “Isn’t your mother home?” came the question. “Nobody’s at home but me,” I blubbered. “Are you bleeding?”. “No”, I replied. “I hit it with the hammer and it hurts”. “Can you open your icebox?” she asked. I said I could. “Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it on your finger. That will stop the hurt. Be careful when you use the ice pick,” she admonished. “And don’t cry. You’ll be alright”.

After that, I called Information Please for everything. I asked for help with my Geography and she told me where Philadelphia was, and the Orinoco—the romantic river I was going to explore when I grew up. She helped me with my Arithmetic, and she told me that a pet chipmunk—I had caught him in the park just that day before—would eat fruits and nuts. And there was the time that Petey, our pet canary, died. I called Information Please and told her the sad story. She listened, then said the usual things grown-up say to soothe a child. But I was unconsoled. Why was it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to whole families, only to end as a heap of feathers feet up, on the bottom of a cage? She must have sensed my deep concern, for she quietly said, “Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in.” Somehow, I felt better.

Another day I was at the telephone. “Information,” said the now familiar voice. “How do you spell fix?”. F-I-X.” At that instant my sister, who took unholy joy in scaring me, jumped off the stairs at me with a banshee shriek—“Yaaaaaaaaaa!” I fell off the stool, pulling the receiver out of the box by its roots. We were both terrified—Information Please was no longer there, and I was not at all sure that I hadn’t hurt her when I pulled the receiver out. Minutes later, there was a man on the porch. “I’m a telephone repairman. I was working down the street and the operator said there might be some trouble at this number.” He reached for the receiver in my hand. “What happened?” I told him. “Well, we can fix that in a minute or two.” He opened the telephone box exposing a maze of wires and coils, and fiddled for a while with the end of the receiver cord, tightened things with a small screwdriver. He jiggled the hook up and down a few times, then spoke into the phone. “Hi, this is Pete. Everything’s under control at 105. The kid’s sister scared him and he pulled the cord out of the box.” He hung up, smiled, gave me a pat on the head and walked out the door.

All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. Then, when I was nine years old, we moved across he country to Boston—and I missed my mentor acutely. Information Please belonged in that old wooden box back at home, and I somehow never thought if trying the tall, skinny new phone that sat on the small table in the hall. Yet, as I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversation never really left me; often in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had when I know that I could call Information Please and get the right answer. I appreciated now how very patient, understanding and kind she was to have wasted her time on a little boy.

A few years later, on my way back to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about half an hour between plan connections, and I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister who lived there now, happily mellowed by marriage and motherhood. Then, really without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, “Information Please.” Miraculously, I heard again the small, clear voice that I know so well:“Information.” I hadn’t planned this, but I heard myself saying, “Could you tell me, please, how to spell the word ‘fix’?” There was a long pause. Then came the softly spoken answer. “I guess,” said Information Please, “that your finger must have healed by now.” I laughed. “So it’s really still you. I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during all that time….” “I wonder,” she replied, “if you know how much you meant to me? I never had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls. Silly, wasn’t it?” It didn’t seem silly, but I didn’t say so. Instead I told her how often I had thought of her over the years, and I asked if I could call her again when I come back to visit my sister when the semester was over. “Please do. Just ask for Sally.” “Goodbye Sally.” It sounded strange for Information Please to have a name. “If I run into any chipmunks, I’ll tell them to eat fruits and nuts.” “Do that,” she said. “And I expect one of these days you’ll be off for the Orinoco. Well, good-bye.”

Just three months later, I was back again at the Seattle airport. A different voice answered, “Information,” and I asked for Sally. “Are you a friend?” “Yes,” I said. “An old friend.” “Then I’m sorry to have to tell you. Sally had only been working part-time in the last few years because she was ill. She died five weeks ago.” But before I could hung up, she said, “Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Villard?” “Yes.” “Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down.” “What was it?” I asked, almost knowing in advance what it would be. “Here it is, I’ll read it—‘Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in. He’ll know what I mean’”

I thanked her and hung up. I did know what Sally meant.

Paul Villard

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Tags: Children, Helping people, Love
Categories : Happiness, Story

“I have seven children from two different men,” Woman tells Pope Francis:

7 09 2014

Pope Francis tells the story of how he met a woman with seven children from two different men. Here is the story in Pope Francis’ own words:

” I met her last year at the Feast of San Cayetano. She’d said: Father, I’m in mortal sin, I have seven children and I’ve never had them baptized. It had happened because she had no money to bring the godparents from a distance, or to pay for the party, because she always had to work.

I suggested we meet, to talk about it. We spoke on the phone, she came to see me, told me that she could never find all the godparents and get them together … In the end I said: let’s do everything with only two godparents, representing the others.

They all came here and after a little catechesis I baptized them in the chapel of the archbishopric.

After the ceremony we had a little refreshment. A coca cola and sandwiches.

She told me: “Father, I can’t believe it, you make me feel important.”

I replied: “But lady, where do I come in? It’s Jesus who makes you important.”….Pope Francis

Read more of the interview.

Comments : 11 Comments »
Tags: Children, Human Dignity, Pope Francis
Categories : Faith

How To Win Secret Points That Make Your Spouse Happy

9 07 2013

For a thousand years, married couples have tried to understand themselves without success. Today, we are glad to announce that it is now possible. Reading The WOMEN’s secret list, all men can understand why their wives treat them the way they do (please find below and don’t fail to read the rules). We are grateful to the female turncoat who passed it to us.

Rules

Remember, just one rule applies: Make your wife happy. If you do something she likes, you get points. If you do something she dislikes, points are subtracted. If your point total is positive, she will be happy. If it is negative, she will be unhappy. If she is unhappy, you will also be unhappy. Remember this. If your point total is zero, the expectant and very attentive gaze that so many men hate will dominate your life. Oh, there is one more little thing: You don’t get any points for doing something nice that she expects you to do.

The List

At a Party

• You stay by her side the entire party: +10
• You stay by her side for a while, then leave to chat with an old college drinking buddy: -2
• Named Tiffany: -10
• Who is an “exotic dancer:” -25
• With implants: -75

Birthdays and Anniversaries
• You remember her birthday or your anniversary: +3
• You buy a card and flowers: +10
• You give her a gift: 0 (remember, you’re expected to do this)
• You give her a gift, and it’s small appliance: -10
• You give her a gift, and it’s not a small appliance: +1
• You give her a gift, and it’s not chocolate: +2
• You give her a gift that you’ll be paying off for months: +30
• You wait until the last minute and buy her a gift that day: -10
• With her credit card: -30
• At the nearest 7-11: -40
• And whatever you bought is two sizes too big: -50
• Two sizes too small: +200
• You take her out to dinner: 0
• You take her out to dinner and it’s not a sports bar: +10
• Okay, it’s a sports bar named Bo’s Belly Barn: -10
• And it’s all you can eat night: -15
• It’s a sports bar named Bo’s Belly Barn, where you both eat at the all you can eat bar, and e place just coincidentally happens to be featuring a game involving your favorite team, d you paint your face the colors of this team, and you get stupid drunk: -50
• You go to a nice, pricey restaurant and hire a guitar player: +10
• You go to a nice, pricey restaurant, hire a guitar player and get up and sing: +15
• And you stink: +12
• And you are not half bad: +25

Thoughtfulness
• You buy her flowers only when it’s expected: 0
• You buy her flowers as a surprise, just for the heck of it: +5
• You give her wildflowers you’ve actually picked yourself: +10
• And she contracts Lyme disease: -25
• You forget to pick her up at the bus station after she visits her mother: 15
• The bus station is in Newark, New Jersey: -25
• When it is pouring rain: -35
• Which dissolves her leg cast: -50

A Night Out with the Boys
• You go out with a pal: -2
• The pal is happily married: +1
• With kids: +1 per kid
• The pal is single: -5
• He drives a Ferrari: -10
• With a personalized license plate that reads GR8NBED: -15
• You have more than a few and perform the tango with a poodle while wearing a toilet seat around your neck: -20
• You have lots of drinks and vaguely remember a ride in the back of an unfamiliar car with uniformed men, and being fingerprinted: -35
• Is that a tattoo???: -200

A Night Out with Her
• You take her to see a movie: +2
• You take her to see a movie she likes: +4
• You take her to see a movie you hate: +6
• You take her to see a movie you like: -2
• Which is called “Death Cop III: Bone Storm:” 12
• Which features cyborgs that eat people after horribly mangling them: -20
• And you told her it was a foreign language film about war orphans and nuns: -50

Saturday Afternoon
• You go to the mall together: +3
• You go to the mall, drop her off at the entrance, then park the car: +4
• You go to the mall, drop her at the entrance, then drive to a sports bar: -2
• You spend the day shopping for furniture and pretend to like it: +3
• You tackle a large household project, such as painting the den: +15
• Or refinishing the floors: +20
• Or rewiring the basement: +25
• Or adding a second floor: +50
• Or setting up a Nerf Ball hoop over the bathroom wastebasket: 6
• And you are tickled pink about it: -15
• You spend the afternoon watching college football in your underwear: -6
• And you didn’t even go to college: -10

Grooming and Exercise
• You trim your nails: +5
• You trim your nails in the living room: -10
• You trim your nails and flick them at the cat: -15
• You trim your nails by biting them and then spitting them at the cat: -25
• You shave on the weekends: +2
• You don’t shave on the weekends: -4
• You don’t bathe on the weekends: -8
• But then, neither does she: +8
• You develop a noticeable pot belly: -15
• You develop a noticeable pot belly and diligently exercise to get rid of it: +20
• You develop a noticeable pot belly and resort to loose jeans and baggy Hawaiian shirts to cover it up: -30
• You point at her and say, “Hey, look! Twins!” -800

The Baby
• You offer to feed and change the baby, but immediately fall back asleep: -5
• You actually feed and change the baby in the middle of the night: +5
• You feed the baby and clean her up, but forget to put a new diaper on her: -10
• You accidentally put beer in the baby’s bottle, thereby guaranteeing a good night’s sleep for the whole family: -0.1
• You put the baby out and feed and change the cat: -50

The Car
• You keep your car, minivan or pickup truck reasonably clean and gassed up, with the tires properly inflated and all necessary fluids at their proper levels: +5/week
• Your car, minivan or pickup truck is so filthy that she can’t find the shift knob and can hardly see out of the windows, plus the carpet is so grungy you could cut it up and feed the dog with it: 10/week
• You make sure there are barely enough fumes in the car to make it to the nearest gas station: -1
• Your car conks out at the side of the road and you fix the problem immediately: +10
• Your car conks out at the side of the road and you mess around under the hood without a clue as to what you are doing for two full hours, and finally use her cell phone to call a tow truck:- 25
• You have personally tuned and upgraded your car to the point where it can reach sixty miles per hour in five seconds flat, but you don’t know how to fix the dishwasher when it goes on the blink: -15
• Your car’s transmission conks out, you pull it out and disassemble it, but leave the whole thing in the bathtub: -50
• There are dead cars in your driveway or front yard: 5 per car per week
• There is a dead school bus in your driveway or front yard: -50 per week
• You lose the directions on a road trip: -4
• You lose the directions and end up getting lost: -10
• You end up getting lost in a really bad part of town: -15
• And meet the locals up close and personal: -25
• And she finds out you lied about having a black belt:- 60

The Dreaded Question: “Am I Gaining Weight?”
• You answer “absolutely not, you are the same slim girl you were when we were dating:” -5, because she knows you are lying, but it is a nice lie
• You hesitate before responding: -10
• You ask “Where?:” -35
• Any other response: -20 (as you can see, this is a always a no win situation for the husband)

When She Wants to Talk About Her Feelings or a Problem
• You listen, displaying a concerned expression: +2
• You listen for over 30 minutes: +5
• You relate to her problem and share a similar experience: +50
• You give her suggestions on how to fix her problem by adjusting her personality: -50
• Your mind wanders to sports and you suddenly hear her saying “Well, what do you think I should do?:” -10 to -20, depending on your answer
• You have fallen asleep: -50

Household Chores
• You make the bed: +1
• You make the bed, but forget to replace the decorative pillows: 0
• You throw the bedspread over rumpled sheets: -1
• You wash the sheets and pillowcases: +5
• You sleep on the sheets until they are greasier than a slab of raw bacon: -10
• You do all of the dishes: +10
• You load up the dishwasher, but leave the greasy pots for her: -5
• You load up the dishwasher, but let the dog have his licks first: -25
• You leave the toilet seat up: -5
• You replace the toilet paper roll when it is empty: +2
• When the toilet paper roll is empty, you resort to Kleenex or paper towels: -10
• When the Kleenex runs out you use the next bathroom: 20
• You go out to buy her favorite ice cream in the middle of a snowstorm: +2
• But return with beer: 5
• And no ice cream: 25
• You check out a suspicious noise at night: +2
• You check out a suspicious noise and it is something: +5
• You pummel it with a baseball bat: +10
• It’s her cat: 40
• It’s her mother: 150

Disgusting Jobs
• You unclog a stopped up toilet: +6
• You clean out the refrigerator: +10
• You clean up cat, dog or human vomit or other bodily fluids: +7
• You get rid of a dead rodent: +8
• You visit her parents: +1
• You visit her parents and actually make conversation: +3
• You visit her parents and stare vacantly at the television: -3
• And the television is off: -6
• You take her mother to see “Cats”: +350

And Now, It’s the Men’s Turn …

We always hear about the rules from the female side. Here are the rules from the men’s side. If you heed these rules, your man will be happy, and so will you.
Please note: These are all numbered “1” on purpose!

(1) Men are NOT mind readers.
(1) Learn to work the toilet seat. You’re a big girl. If it’s up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don’t hear us complaining about you leaving it down.
(1) Sunday sports — It’s like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.
(1) Crying is blackmail.
(1) Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints DO NOT WORK! Just SAY it!
(1) Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.
(1) Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That’s what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.
(1) Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after seven days.
(1) If you think you’re fat, you probably are. Don’t ask us. IT’S A TRAP!!!
(1) If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.
(1) You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done — not both! If you already know how to do it, just do it yourself.
(1) Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials.
(1) Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions — and neither do we.
(1) ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve or puce is.
(1) If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.
(1) If we ask what is wrong and you say “nothing,” We will act like nothing’s wrong. We know you’re lying, but it is just not worth the hassle trying to figure out what the hell it is.
(1) If you ask a question you don’t want an answer to, expect an answer you don’t want to hear.
(1) When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine … Really!
(1) Don’t ask us what we’re thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as baseball, football, cars or golf.
(1) You have enough clothes.
(1) You have too many shoes.
(1) I am in shape. Pear IS a shape!
(1) Thank you for reading this. Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight — but did you know men really don’t mind that? It’s like camping!