So far this summer has been low stress for me and, though it is sometimes boring, that is probably a good thing.

My friend's uncle died recently in a very heroic way.  His thoughts on life are now a lot deeper and he has an interesting narrative understanding of death.  What my friend said about his uncle's passing, combined with some deep conversations with my brother Ben, are making me reconsider some assumptions with which I'd been comfortable for a while.

Though I know that we ought to be bent toward a life of service, it is difficult to come to terms with such a life at times.  I think I ought to start small.

The Summer Plan for Fitness.

So I'm making a summer plan for general health and fitness. I think this is it:

-Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I will lift weights at the CoRec.

-Mondays: Arms and abdominals
-Wednesdays: Shoulders and legs
-Fridays: Chest and abdominals

-Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays I will run 5 or so miles.

-I will eat within 30 minutes of waking up and within 30 minutes of working out (if possible).

-I'll focus on eating much more fiber than I currently do--mostly through the liberal use of fibrous breakfast cereals.

-I will eat more protein as a proportion of my daily calorie intake.

-I need to establish limits on unhealthy habits that are nevertheless inevitable, given the fact that this is freakin' summer (exception to most of these limits: the week Ben and I are in Europe):

-No more than 1 skipped workout per week.
-No more than 8 drinks per week (four nights off per week times two drinks per night).
-No more than 3 pops per week (at the movies, refills DO NOT constitute additional pops).
-No more than 3 fried dishes per week.
-No sleeping in past 10AM.
-At least 8 hours of sleep per day.
-On at least 4 mornings per week, I will do push-ups and/or sit-ups.

-I will try to walk everywhere possible, and when I get it, I will ride my bike as well.

-I will try to drink as much tea as possible: at least one per day.

On the Ordination of Women

I was reading an interesting article defending the Catholic Church's timeless tradition of ordaining only male priests.  One point caught my eye especially:

"Ordination to the ministerial priesthood is reserved to men because the Church is bound to follow the example of the Lord, who chose only men as his Apostles."

I believe this argument is a little weaker that the RCC would like it to be.  So far as this argument is concerned, the one characteristic that was both common to all the Apostles and relevant to the determination of whom the Church ought to ordain is gender.  But this is not necessarily so.  Take, for instance, the fact that every Apostle was Hebrew.  This criterion for ordination is obviously not a factor in modern discourse even though its prima facie merit is exactly the same as the Apostles' gender--namely that the Lord picked them all, so we ought to follow His example.

Of course I am being less than generous since other criteria are obviously crucial to determining who is fit for the priesthood.  Naturally all Apostles believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, and so we ought to follow the Lord's example and only ordain believers.  This makes sense right off the bat.  What does not make sense right off the bat, however, is the argument that we ought to ordain only men to the priesthood since Christ only picked men as his Apostles.  This argument needs quite a bit more fleshing out before it can suffice, it seems.  (And of course there is a great deal of additional material defending the RCC's decision through the centuries.  My issue is with this one listed reason for forbidding female ordination.)