Stephen Ind

I believe that the practice of artificial birth control is not allowed and that the use of natural family planning is only allowed in the case of necessity. Are we at the point where natural family planning can be allowed due to the necessity of limiting people's impact on the environment. I do not believe so. With this in mind it is very important that the freedom of the spouses to have children is respected. Part of this is the respect for their conscience to decide if there is or isn't a necessity to practice natural family planning.

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I am glad to hear of technological developments which are showing promise in providing more food, providing cleaner energy and also for providing cheaper and better medical care.

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I think we must embrace life and trust in God's providence for us and not fear the future.

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On Twitter I have used a whole range of categories to tag different accounts with. Most accounts would fit into more than one category. The major part of this classification is about religion. Christian or non-Christian then Catholic or Protestant and within the Catholic Faith a number of points showing interest in: Prolife, Mary, Rosary, Theology, Apologetics and so on. Another major category on the level of Christian or non-Christian is if the account makes to family life.

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As you can see I do enjoy classifying but here on ASK I don't classify people. ASK, of course, does not allow one to do this in the way that Twitter does but I would hope I would not use the function even if it existed. I feel here it is more about finding out about people and sharing knowledge and seeking knowledge.

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In my interaction with people I am always hoping to draw them closer to God and so I am aware if someone is Christian or non-Christian Catholic or Protestant, what moral code they hold too, of course whether male or female, married, single or dating. But it is more about the person and the seeking of knowledge to me than these categories.

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Thanks for the question it has given me reason to think.

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I have looked at the website a bit and it looks interesting but I could not really see how authentic the experience would be.

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I am not for joining in the worship of Christian church groups as I believe that there is one Church founded by Christ and that Church is the Catholic Church which is the only group which can show that it has existed since the time of Christ till today. HolyLand seems to embrace the idea of different groups worshiping together. So that makes be feel uneasy but of course it is not necessary to join any services like that.

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I am always a little concerned to see if there is Protestant bias to presentations but again any bias there may be could be overlooked because so much of the presentations will be really interesting and the experience of what it would be like to be these Biblical places I think will be very moving.

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If I lived in the States then I might well visit and if in Florida then I think I would definitely visit.

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Yes, at one time I really preferred to ask questions anonymously and I have simply kept the habit. I am comfortable with asking questions in my name too.

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I am trying to recall why I used to prefer asking questions anonymously. I think one part was not wanting to draw attention to myself. Though my speaking quite plainly about my life and having an account in my name goes against this idea rather.

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Another aspect was allowing the person to answer the question in a "complete" way not specifically for me so to say. I think this makes the site more interesting for others as the answers are written for anyone so to say. I am not sure that there is really much to this.

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On occasions I have asked something which referred to a part of my life which I wanted to keep private but this has been really seldom.

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I think I might have been concerned that women might have thought that I was trying to build a romantic relationship with them if I asked a lot of questions. But I have become more relaxed about this seeing how many intersex friendships there are here.

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I was also initially afraid, to some extent, that younger people would feel uncomfortable in answering questions from an older man. That they would feel what is this old guy doing wanting to talk to me? Is he looking for sex? This is weird. But happily over time I have seen this not the reaction of most younger people.

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My real interest in talking to younger people is to find out how they view the world and what are their issues. I do this really with a great hope to help them to draw closer to God who I believe is the fulfillment all our desires. Of course at the same time I am drawn closer to God too and learn at least as much as I hope to impart.

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I really think the idea of being able to ask anonymous questions is great as one can ask about things which otherwise one might feel uncomfortable speaking about and it makes one feel more relaxed about asking questions without the concern if others might think they are stupid questions.

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Sorry for how jumbled this is but I just wanted to get down the thoughts that came to mind.

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It was quite an experience.

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Due to my antagonism towards the warders I ended up in contact with people who were standing trial for the death penalty. I can say surprisingly that the more serious the charges that an inmate face the easier I found it to get along with them.

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Jail life is in some ways all topsy-turvy. Warders are the enemy and the rules of the inmates are the expression of what is right and honorable and good. Respect for each other, is a central thing to the inmates code and yet there are certain people who are beneath respect - snitches, child molesters and homosexuals. Violence against these is completely acceptable. It seemed to me that inmates would be very serious on a fine point of respect between each other while completely negating respect for others.

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The gang system in jail was really very vicious and corrupting. One is forced into joining a gang and then one becomes involved in all sorts of crime and violence. Members are held in the gang through fear and the freedom of an individual is completely disregarded.

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I did not play be the rules.

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I was very happy to respect everyone as this is what Christianity demands of us. Happily I was shown how one cannot judge anyone no matter how bad one might consider his actions. This was brought home to me very clearly. But I was greatly at variance with the rules of the inmates by affording the same respect to snitches, child molesters and homosexuals.

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I did not join a gang and was totally unaware of the gang system and of how rigid it was and how people of other groups were held in contempt. Unknowingly I went against all the rules in a very dramatic way. Sadly the gangs were also along race lines: white, black and mexican. On entering jail I spoke to all races, shared food with all races and acted as an individual in ways that were considered contemptible by all races and as a disgrace to all inmates. Okay before you get ideas of what great crimes I was committing, my "sin" was looking for scraps thrown away in the trash can. Basically what led to this was the fact that the jail gave us insufficient food. I did not want to have money on my jail account to buy extras from the canteen fearing that this would make me a target of extortion and I did not want to take anything from inmates as this was against the jail rules. Taking food from inmates would also have made me beholden to them - they could have put pressure on me to do favors for them in return and there was also the possibility of being drugged or involved in the handling of drugs.

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One of my primary focuses from eating from trash cans was to shame the jail authorities into providing better food. It really was not good of them to be putting people in danger of moral corruption by not giving one good food.

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So this provides some background to my interaction with inmates. The men I met had accepted this system. I did not. It was dangerous but I treated them as human beings and they responded.

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The respect given to God is of course completely without equal.

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It is an interesting question to me because I think of the situation for a monk and his abbot where the abbot can truly be seen as the voice of God. But even in this situation a monk should not do something immoral at the request of the abbot.

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One of the clearest examples of finding myself at variance with the clergy is when a priest has taught something publicly which is against the faith.

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I have also felt conflict when a priest has been silent on controversial issues. I have grown in my understanding for a priest's silence about moral challenges which his congregation faces. I still think that priests should present the teachings of the Church simply and clearly and call everyone to this high standard which is possible by the grace of God and is supported by the infinite mercy of God in Confession.

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More often I have found myself at variance with the clergy when I have tried to correct what I felt was the choir's poor singing by showing them up during Mass. And a whole litany of similarly awful things. So the tension between me and the clergy is largely my fault. I am beginning to learn to leave things to the priests and to God.

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You are kind. I think I do worry a bit. I did spend 1,5 years standing trial in America. A long story of which you find bits on here. The charges were dropped. Thanks be to God. But during that time I grayed very rapidly. There were no mirrors in the jail and so one could not check one's appearance. What made me realize that I must have grayed rapidly was a comment one of the warders made after I had been in jail for just 2 weeks or so that I was going white. At the time I thought he was commenting on the effect the jail soap was having on my hair. I did not have shampoo and was using the quite crude soap. When I did see how I had grayed on getting out I thought back of what he said and realized that this graying most probably set in right away and very rapidly.

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One can counter that gray hairs are a sign of wisdom. :-)

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Lasagna. I agree with you that we need to think of ways for people to feed themselves and if necessary have access to food.

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I read a very interesting article in a local paper (seems like you have to register to access it online http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/stnews/2016/09/25/Feeding-the-world-one-sonic-boom-at-a-time) about a machine which breaks down even the cell walls (sounds odd?) of vegetable mater which is put in it. One of the big advantages was that there was no waste, skin, pips and everything are reduced to an edible and, with the right ingredients, quite palatable liquid.

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When I looked at the website it was not immediately easy to see how revolutionary the machine was but here is the site, it seems to have been improved. http://greencelltechnologies.com/

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I have thought I really should try planting some vegetables on a pavement near my parish. It would a small way to contribute. Some people in Johannesburg have been trying this. I was happy to find some organic vegetable seeds just the other day. That gives one the chance of harvesting one's own seed which is cool.

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So great that you are concerned about how to feed the world. All the best with achieving that goal. :-)

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