Wednesday Journal takes note of two village board candidates, both sitting trustees, dropping out as candidates for the April election, one of them for return to the board as trustee, the other for president/mayor, and comes up with its own mysterious observation:

What changed their minds? Not entirely clear. But we believe they made the right choice. As we have often said, campaigns are the place to sort out qualifications for office, whether that is debating a matter of policy or challenging a candidate’s residency. Voters should make these decisions.

They chose well but Wed J not sure why. Right choice: why?

Campaigns are where voters consider qualifications, it’s the time for voters to decide, they are the ones who should do so.

But to withdraw is to deprive voters of an option. But these candidates choose well. How so?

As for challenging a residency, neither of these withdrawing…

Lutheran pastor Burnell Eckardt mused about leading prayer at a church service and concluded that while doing so, he never has “the remotest thought of praying with levity or jocularity.”

Never is humor added as if to maintain the attention of people who might be silently praying along. Never in the prayers of the church, or for that matter, in personal prayers, is humor thought to be a helpful ingredient. . . .

This pastor thought it puzzling. “Whenever we speak to God we are dead serious. We are not trying . . . to be funny, or evoke laughter.”

(Let us hope so, though many the churchgoer who would not be surprised by ill-timed attempts at humor.)

“Why then?” he asks, “is there [the urge] to employ levity or evoke laughter when it is time for us to hear God, when there is preaching?”

In the sermon, “the…

The cardinal tweeted, bishops did not.

This week, numerous bishops have speculated to The Pillar that Cupich’s frustration [with issuance of the archbishop’s
tough-on-Biden letter] was a critical factor in the Holy See’s decision to intervene before Gomez’ statement was released, with an attempt first to shelve it, and then to delay it.

But if Cupich [sought] the Holy See’s intervention, his stock in Rome has likely declined after the embarrassment of public reporting about the intervention, and then the statement’s eventual release.

Vatican pushed in untimely fashion, acting at Cupich’s request, nothing moved.

If Cupich was relying on favor in Rome to exercise influence in the U.S. bishops’ conference — as he is believed to have done in the wake of the McCarrick scandal [when Vatican intervened in
opposition to bishops’ plans] — it seems that after this week, he will have fewer chips to play, at…

We know it does, but by how much and how? Not something we have to know, you know, but it’s good to remind us of it sometimes.

Reading helps reduce stress, decrease blood pressure and improve heart rate which will release tension in our muscles. A study from the University of Sussex shows that stress can be reduced by up to 68% with just reading alone, and it’s more effective than many other stress relievers out there.

• The Reading Agency found that reading reduces depression and dementia symptoms.
• Reading for Six minutes a day reduces stress by 68 percent.
• Regular readers show lower rates of depression compared to non-readers.
• Reading is 300 percent more effective at reducing stress than going for a walk.

The study conducted by the University of Sussex found that reading is one of the most beneficial ways of reducing stress.

It found that reading…