Bereshit!

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I misspelled "feces of an animal from the Ursus genus." Actually, it's the English transliteration of the Hebrew phrase, "In the beginning," which opens the Book of Genesis with, ahem, a big bang.

My blog's beginning is not quite supernatural in scale but I've waited quite long enough to launch it, as, among other things, I couldn't in conscience keep unleashing too many more rants in my wife's direction. I'm going to start small and see what happens. Today turns out to be a good day to start. In the Catholic liturgical calendar, July 1 happens to be the Feast of Blessed Junipero Serra, the great Apostle to California. Ora pro nobis.

I have no idea if I'll draw a million readers or three, nor have I decided to go with comment boxes permanently as I don't have time to delete naughty words, referee angry disputations and generally police the thing. Time will tell. I'll make mistakes along the way, being an honorary Luddite myself. Work with me.

Speaking of me, I'm Nova Scotia-born but live in the United States (aka The States if you're a Canuck). My interests are eclectic, maybe to a fault, as a quick visit here, there and everywhere will verify.

But the thing about me that tempers all the others and provides the lens through which I interpret life, history, and current events is orthodox Catholicism -- a faith I was earnestly raised in, foolishly rebelled against, and gratefully returned to. My new bumpersticker sums it up. It's "I (big red heart) my German Shepherd" featuring Pope Benedict XI with his arms raised on the day of his election.

While I live in America, due north of Hollywood, I'll be posting fairly regularly on all things related to my home and native land of Canada. This puts me on the business end of two very different sticks. For when I talk about America, my fellow Canadians get antsy, agitated and angry. And what do Americans get when I talk about Canada? Bored! One item that did make it above the fold in US newspapers this week, however, was the shoving down the throa... er, I mean the passage of Bill C-38, the imposed invention of "legal" "gay" "marriage." Heavy sigh. One of the more depressing aspects of this cultural earthquake is the laissez faire reaction from many conservatives. More on this later.

One of my ongoing interests, possibly verging on intellectual fetishism, is Judaism. Start the list with their invention of Hollywood. This Catholic wants to stay as close as possible to the Jewish roots of his Catholic faith, and to learn as much as possible from the earthy wisdom of his "elder brothers in faith," in Pope John Paul the Great's memorable term. One way I do that is through membership in the Association of Hebrew Catholics, where the are goyim warmly welcomed.

Special thanks to my "alma mentors" in blogdom: Barbara Nicolosi, Domenico Bettinelli and Kathy Shaidle. Thanks be to God that St. Blog's is a simultaneously immense and intimate parish.

See you at coffee and donuts, eh.