The Sunday Snewz Issue No. 13
April 16, 2023: All That Is Good, Beautiful and True
I took a break from writing the Sunday Snewz last week because it was Easter. Not only did you have plenty more important things to do, but I feared sending out a frivolous, satirical newsletter on Easter Sunday may earn me a visit to one of Dante’s 9 Circles of Hell.
Holy Week and Easter is an important, reflective time for me. I love spring, always have - delicate flowers, crisp mornings, dewy grass, the smell of garden soil being turned over and the sense of a new beginning brought about by my upbringing as a Christian. Easter has always been about the resurrection for me and quite frankly, I take slight offense by those who celebrate only for the Easter bunny and chocolate eggs. Why don’t commercialized non-believers ever take over Jewish holidays or occasions like Ramadan?
Fair question.
Aside from reasons mentioned above, Easter took on an even deeper meaning back in 2002 - the year my daughter Kathryn died. Easter Sunday fell on March 31st that year. Kathryn was born two weeks later. I remember that spring vividly, as most of my time was spent hoping she would live to celebrate Easter inside of me. She did and on that day, I was granted a new sense of peace about suffering.
My entire pregnancy involved suffering - not physically, but emotionally. I was given Kathryn’s diagnosis of Trisomy 18 at around 16 weeks. I’ve told the story many times before, so I won’t retell it here. What I haven’t shared though, is how her short life impacted my connection to God, the story of Jesus and my understanding of the need for suffering. I was only 27 at the time so it’s fair to say I still held the limited beliefs bestowed upon me by my Catholic roots. Beliefs I am eternally grateful for, don’t get me wrong, as a solid foundation of believing in something bigger than you is invaluable - it keeps you in check. It reminds us that we don’t have all the answers and the world is much bigger than us. It reminds us we couldn’t possibly understand this vast universe nor what lies beyond it, if anything. It provides humility - something the collective world lacks these days.
By far the most common question I got while I was pregnant, and still get to this day is, “if you knew your daughter had a fatal anomaly, why did you carry her to term?” The pc version of, “why didn’t you just kill your daughter and save yourself the suffering?” Honestly, this question still baffles me. But for those who think ending my pregnancy would have spared me suffering, I assure you it wouldn’t have. Living eternally with unknowns, seeing my lifeless child with translucent skin stretched taut over deep blue veins, cutting short what Kathryn’s life meant to the world? Doesn’t sound like less suffering to me.
In the words of Viktor Frankl, who I’d say knows a thing or two about suffering, he explains, “Let us not forget that each individual person is imperfect, but each is imperfect in a different way, each “in his own way.” “And as imperfect as he is, he is uniquely imperfect. So, expressed in a positive way, he becomes somehow irreplaceable, unable to be represented by anyone else, unexchangeable.”
Yes, my daughter was imperfect - just like you and just like me. But again in the words of Frankl, she “deserved to die a death of dignity, in her own way - after fulfilling her purpose.” She fulfilled her purpose - within my belly and in less than one hour outside of it.
She was all that is good, beautiful and true.
Suffering isn’t avoidable and when you attempt to avoid it, you prolong it. This is the message in the story of Jesus and the resurrection. Jesus takes up his cross, shares the burden of its weight with several onlookers along the way and then dies on it. After descending into hell, he rises to the full glory of eternal life. Whether you believe simply in the historical figure of Jesus and the biblical stories as myths, or you believe Jesus is the Savior of the world is here nor there for our purpose in this article. Don’t get bogged down in what you think you know. The story shows us that through suffering, we have the possibility of new life. Through descending into the darkest depths of hell, we find new light. We have the opportunity to live this in our everyday life.
Carrying my daughter all those months, knowing she was not going to live, felt like a descent into hell. But on that Easter Sunday in 2002, listening to the story of Jesus, hearing the song, Here I am Lord, (which I played at her funeral two weeks later,) I finally understood my suffering would end. And through my willingness to embrace it fully, without question, I would be brought to new levels of joy. And I was.
I have always taken issue with one part of the resurrection story though - that Jesus did all the work for us. To Christians I realize this sounds blasphemous but hear me out. I guess I’ve witnessed too many believers dodge their crosses in life, clinging to the idea that they don’t have to suffer because Jesus did it for them. This doesn’t sit well with me. He allowed others along the way to carry his cross for him - this means He expects us to carry our crosses too. That seems so obvious. But this past week, I heard a profound, deeper explanation as to our role in the story. When the risen Jesus appears to Mary Magdalen, he says to her, (and I paraphrase because I learned scripture as a Catholic not a Protestant,) “do not touch me, for I have not yet completed my ascention to my God and your God.” What he means is for her to no longer cling to Him. Instructing her to take on the ascention along with Him. Essentially telling her, “look Mary, I expect all of you who take on the enormous responsibility of calling yourselves Christians to do the work, just as I have.”
I have always recommended people source their food as close to home as possible. Buy your dairy from a local farmer or at least be sure to get A2/A2 milk from a small provider. It is not natural to be consuming dairy made from one-hundred different cows - yuck. Shop at the farmer’s market where you can look the people you are trusting with your nutrition in the eye and avoid big brands like “Silk Soy” and most products from big chains stores like Costco. It’s common sense really. Anything made in quantities large enough to stock big box stores isn’t high quality.
These recommendations will seemingly prove to be more and more critical as technology advances. According to a recent article written by
, the Chinese have proven successful in immunizing mice with the use of mRNA in cow's milk.Not good.
If tampering with food sources seems a tad too conspiratorial for you, be sure to listen to my latest podcast with Robb Wolf. Robb has a lot of light to shed on how food is grown in our country and what we can expect in the days ahead. The Unapologetically Evie Podcast launched this week, by the way. In case you missed it.
The podcast is available to paid subscribers, so I’m offering for a limited-time 20% an annual subscription to get you started.
I’m beginning to think I should rename this section - take away “arts” and just leave culture. Rarely is there anything artful about what I discuss in terms of our current culture. Far from it.
It turns my stomach to mention all that is not good, beautiful nor true in this issue but I can’t help myself. This week, the narcissistic, attention seeking psychopath, Dylan Mulvaney was front and center news. To be perfectly honest, up until this week, I’ve completely ignored this freak - I have much better things to do with my time than indulge in the antics of a grown man acting out prepubescent displays of girlhood. But after companies like Nike and Anheuser-Busch decided to glorify mental-illness and call it a representation of womanhood, I had to take a closer look.
As for Nike, they have made it clear - they believe a woman is best represented by a boy, jumping around, flipping his ponytail and kicking his legs in a spastic display. Got it. The plastic smile, hands on his boney hips, looking like an eight year old cheer-girl - the video makes my blood boil. The good news is this might have taken the whole trans issue too far, with feminists everywhere starting to stand up to these insults. From one end of the globe to another, women are finally speaking up and saying enough is enough.
And because hiring Dylan Mulvaney went over so well for Nike, Anheuser-Busch thought they’d give it a go too. After all, when your customer base consists of homegrown, 2nd Amendment loving men like Kid Rock, what better way to increase sales than to hire a boy, dressed up like a step ford wife touting your brand.
“So I kept hearing about this thing called March Madness, and I just thought we were all just having a hectic month! It turns out it has something to do with sports. And I’m still not sure exactly which sport but it is cause to celebrate.” claims Dylan as he awkwardly taps the top of his beer can before popping the top. Yet another insulting insinuation that women are stupid and know nothing about sports.
Senior level executives claim to have known nothing of the campaign, and place the blame solely at the feet of Alissa Heinerscheid, who went on camera to explain her goal in revamping the brand was to make it less “fratty” and more inclusive. One can’t help but wonder if Ms. Heinerscheid has an axe to grind from her college days.
Not beautiful.
The CEO issued a statement which reads as if he generated it by asking ChatGBT how to say absolutely nothing in a lot of words, but it’s not looking like it’s helping the situation as Anheuser-Busch has lost over $6B in market value in the past ten days.
Fellow Substack writer, and previous New York Times reporter Alex Berenson at
wrote an exceptional piece on the topic. In the article, Berenson goes beyond the surface issue of transgenderism and gets to the real root issue, transhumanism. Be sure to check it out.A couple years ago, Mulvaney was just another gay guy who liked musical theater and preening. Today, after hormone replacement therapy and facial feminization surgery, including
hairline advancement; a brow bone shave; a rhinoplasty; a cheek enhancement; a lip lift; a jaw shave; a chin reduction; and a tracheal shave -
Mulvaney can pass for a woman, if you squint! And have a couple Bud Lights. Don’t look at the knees, either. The knees are always the giveaway.
The most paradoxical of all this gender nonsense is it based upon stereotypical gender roles.
Not true.
There are varying degrees of femininity and masculinity within both sexes but the entire trans movement of late relies on the stereotypes of no varying degrees. I don’t think they realize that.
When you look around us, we seem to be sliding into the abyss. We are being asked to believe lies, accept what is bad for humanity and pretend it is good and turn a blind eye to the ugliness within the human spirit. We are collectively suffering and it doesn’t seem like many are willing to do their part to end it. Your part is to stand against what you believe to be wrong. Refuse to participate in lies by speaking truth. Stop giving your money to companies who are dragging us deeper into hell.
Whether you consider yourself a Christian, a Jew, a Buddhist, a Muslim, agnostic or an atheist, the lessons from the story of the resurrection are relevant in your life today. There is meaning in suffering - running from it will only descend you further into hell. Which I think we can all agree we are doing as a civilization right now. Dante’s writings in The Divine Comedy are a “go-to” tool for me in understanding myself and my responsibilities a human being. In the Inferno, Dante describes how he doesn’t begin to ascend until he has reached the deepest depths of hell. Along the way, he is forced to recognize within himself the sins of those stuck in hell for eternity. He has to literally crawl across Satan’s back before he can begin to climb his way out. Descent is the prerequisite for ascent.
Tomorrow is my daughter’s birthday, I’d like to leave you with this song in her honor.