Discretion

I've been reading The Dialog of St. Catherine of Siena from CCEL for a public domain audiobook (for Maria Lectrix and archive.org's Open Source Audio/Spoken Word section).

It's pretty interesting. (And with those run-on sentences, it's a lot easier to read out loud than by eye.) But I've also been learning a lot. For some reason, I really liked the explanation of how all sins are against the neighbor (yourself being your chief neighbor), either by commission or by omission of gaining grace, which would let you help your neighbor more. Also, it's strangely relaxing it is for someone as nitpicky as me to get reminded that other people, and God, are even nitpickier about sin -- and yet we get delivered from our sins. Finally, I'm pretty sure St. C is the ultimate source of Mark Shea's "Sin makes you stupid", since she pretty much says that about the "eye of the intellect" in a more lengthy way. I'm not sure what else to say about the book, though. It's got a lot of meat in it that I'm still chewing on.

I'm currently in the middle of "The Book of Discretion", and boy, do I need it.

For example, I probably should just accept seeing a tiger in the middle of a display of African animals. And I did manage not to freak out like a flame war in Mark Shea's comment box, or anything like that. I told the proper people; the proper people refused to change the display; and I guess I just have to accept it with as much love and grace as I can muster. Nobody is going to budge on this, so making more fuss would just make things worse. After all, it's just a silly little display, and it's coming down very soon.

E pur si muova. Dang it.

Still, there's a difference between concern for the truth and intellectual pride, and I've got enough of the latter that I can't really assume I've got the former.