Saturday, June 6, 2026

Catholic Insight

Inspired by Truth, Enlightening Minds for the Church in Canada and Throughout the World

Catholic Insight

Inspired by Truth, Enlightening Minds for the Church in Canada and Throughout the World

Moving Days

By Carolynne EstisPosted on Posted in BlogsTagged , , ,

As my family travels, we meet quite a few people who ask us things like, “Where is your favorite place to go?” (I have no answer to this) or “What’s your favorite part of traveling?” For this question, it’s easier to just give some simple generic answer about how much fun it is to travel and then move on.

Wednesday was a moving day, our first after an extraordinarily long stationary period of about six weeks. Early that morning (though not as early as we wanted) we got up, stowed our belongings in their traveling spaces, snugged the hermit crab tank into the sink, strapped stuff down, unplugged cords and hoses, pulled up the levelling jacks, locked all the doors, and hit the road. Our journey took us across the last strip of western Nebraska and across a pretty good chunk of Wyoming. As we drove, I began to think about what my favorite part of living on the road really is.

I grew up in southern Alabama. Alabama is a reasonably pretty place. It might very well have a landscape that is as striking as the landscape of the plains, only no one ever noticed because the whole place is covered in trees. I suppose that if one was not used to trees, then Alabama might be just as impressive, but I don’t really know. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. At any rate, no matter how long I spend traveling through the west, Wyoming is still a bit shocking.

One of the more negative side effects of constant travel is that after a few years, it just isn’t quite as exciting. In the last four years we have driven nearly a hundred thousand miles back and forth across the United States. After a while, the roads start to look too familiar. The excitement begins to wear off because instead of going somewhere new, we just travel over the same places we’ve already been to a dozen times. This is often fun, but not particularly exciting.

Then, out of the blue, something breaks up the trip and reminds you of what was so terrific about traveling in the first place. Sometimes it’s a trip home to remind one of what sedentary life was like. Other times it’s just the simple shock of driving through a place like Wyoming. Surrounded by wilderness that goes on and on, bluffs and buttes and baby antelope and sheep ranches with lambs hopping through the super green spring grass, it’s a little bit harder to be dismissive of the world outside the window. Something about the landscape is too jolting to be ignored. Too beautiful. And that’s when the journey gets to be fun again.

Beauty is defined as “combination of qualities, such as shape, color, etc. that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially sight.” It also means “a combination that pleases the intellect or moral sense.”

Beauty can have two parts. The first is merely pleasing to the senses. The second is a more internal appreciation of something. For instance, looking at an excellent painting, one is first drawn to its visually appealing qualities. After looking closely, though, one becomes acquainted with the more intellectual side of the painting—the symbols, the hidden meanings, the historical influences. The painting is then pleasing both aesthetically and intellectually. And just as beauty can draw one’s attention to intellectually appealing qualities, it also has the ability to draw ones attention to moral things—hence beautiful churches.

Driving across the country all the time (and really, just living through a day), there are abundant opportunities to see all kinds of beauty. There are also plenty of opportunities to overlook beauty, and that, I am sorry to say, is probably the much more common occurrence. That’s where the shock comes in. A shock of beauty to recall the thrill of adventure and the fun of the journey and to remind us how important it is to look for more beauty.

And that’s my favorite part of traveling.

A Closed, Unsustainable, Descending Loop

As a follow-up to my thoughts on Payette’s payout, here be a stark image of where are here in Canada. As the graph shows in, well, graphic terms, since 2025, the public sector has contributed to 95.5% of economic growth. The private sector – which funds the public sector, or is supposed to – has[…]Continue reading→

Pope Leo and a Rosary for Peace

Pope Leo XIV has asked Catholics across the world to join him in a Rosary for peace today, at 18:00 Rome time (6 pm), which would be noon from where I write (EST). If you are able, whether at that time or another, and in whatever way you pray, to join in intercession with the[…]Continue reading→

Payette’s Payout

I was glancing through some headlines, and noticed a mention of Julie Payette – engineer and astronaut and sometime the Queen’s representative in Canada – which brought back vague memories. She was appointed Governor-General by Justin Trudeau in 2017. Ms. Payette resigned in 2021, amidst claims that she created a ‘toxic work environment’, with allegations[…]Continue reading→

Your Easter Prayer

Happy Easter Lord Jesus Christ. It’s Easter day and we smile In the Lord’s in gentle light and His tomb is bare the stone is rolled A story new that must be told And Lord Jesus Christ We love you it’s so true and Lord Jesus Christ has risen From his sleep and the Promises[…]Continue reading→

Three Musical Offerings for the Annunciation

A very blessed Solemnity of the Annunciation to one and all! This March 25th marking the greatest event in history – the Incarnation of the Son of God – goes back to the very origins of the Church, and changed everything. What was lost, is now found, what was dead, is now very much alive.[…]Continue reading→

Eleganti Sums up the SSPX

Bishop Marian Eleganti, auxiliary emeritus of Chur, Switzerland, through which I happened to pilgrimage last summer, sums up the irregular situation of the SSPX. His thoughts bear pondering: Firstly, acting with full autonomy without papal mandate or confirmed mission; secondly, operating with bishops not in union with the Pope and the episcopal college; thirdly, maintaining[…]Continue reading→

The Perils of Sedevacantism

(With John-Henry Westen of LifeSite raising the question of sedevacantism, urging a petition for the cardinals to question the validity of Francis’ and Leo’s papacies, here is a re-post of something I wrote earlier, on why we must tread with great caution in declaring a papacy, or any given pope, null and void. Whatever good[…]Continue reading→

Entropic AI

Entropy may be described as the tendency of all things degrade, to move from order to disorder, from cosmos to chaos, from specificity to entropy. It is the inevitable consequence of any closed system, and encapsulated as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Any such system – whether that be a machine, a living organism, a[…]Continue reading→

How Do We Know Christ Really Lived?

Every now and then we hear in various and sundry places one of the greatest blasphemies of them all: that Jesus never really lived and that the reports of his life and teachings, his death and resurrection, were all made up by unscrupulous men apparently bent on exploiting others for greed and power. At this[…]Continue reading→

Scroll to top