In my email . . . On Thu, 4 Jan 2007 20:03:36 EST, a fellow roundtable member wrote:

Dear Pristinus, I would like to suggest that you cool the "...God's first" portion of your handle. It is a noble attachment and quite creative but since you answer so many of the articles and comments in the Catholic Exchange, it is becoming boorish and laden with overkill. You have much to offer and are of particular interest. Dropping that portion of your handle will effectively add to your excellent contributions. I look forward to your continuing presence on CE.

(Try, any, to chase me off! And, to which I responded . . .) Dear Sir, Thank you for appreciating my presence at the roundtable. It is a rare person around here whom I do not find welcome to read their posts. So many so often are illuminating. I have to wonder how my remembrance of a worthy spiritual and intellectual martyr - and example and hero of mine - could 'overkill' anything at a Catholic site? Saint Thomas More, a devoted family man as well as loyal and effective king's officer, reflected what we must keep in front of us at all times - no matter who else claims our attention, care, service, etc., God has prime claim at all times. As 'noble and creative' as it is - it is me, about me, for me, and gives any reader a glimpse into me as does my nickname of Pristinus Sapienter. It is, after a fashion, a means of giving tête-à-tête to what is far from intimate conversation, as such internet things go. Likely as not, on the roundtable, considering all, I might not even be able tell if you are a man or woman, mightn't I? Only as you have fully signed your message can I know you as [his given name]. (Yet, of a fact, it is your right to tell me that your sex and even actual name are not my business, eh?) Then again, of my nickname, of Latin masculine suffix, I do give away that I am a man; my avatar, also, unless I am a bald, bearded lady(!) Indeed, I think that all about my postings, even in the canned signature, calls for just such response as you have made, beyond the topics and subjects of exchanges. You find it boorish, and I am certain others find me boorish (and worse) in other ways. In fact, as it is your clear right to find things about me boorish and tell me so, I dare to say that it is my very right, since it can hardly affect anyone else, referring again to the lack of close-and-personal on the 'net, to verily be boorish. Such as being boorish can yield responses that tactful language might not. I do thank you for using what I conveniently leave on every one of my posts - my email address. However, absent your identifying markings, I am posting this exchange on the roundtable that others can offer their opinions of my ways of postings. They can even get ad hominem, as it suits their chance to opine on me and my posts, etc. So, I thank you for opening a topic for which I would be able to get a glimpse of me as a number of others do, as I appear on the roundtable. Regards and blessings, Warren Jewell

As a hackneyed expression would have it, 'fire when ready, Gridley' - whoever would be Gridley at-the-guns . . .

THIS IS NOT an open invitation to 'hunt down' any but myself. None else has asked for such opinion of you. I ask for your frank appraisal - compare me to no one else except in vaguest identifiable terms about the other. Well - except as how his or her spiritual excellence to eloquence has trumped my less Godly posts. In that, there is lesson for any who read this thread, eh? And, too, yet, however, do dare I to . . . . . . remain your obedient servant, but God's first, Pristinus Sapienter (wljewell @catholicexchange.com or ... yahoo.com)

THERE YOU GO - Just who is going to take 'his best shot' when you call me incomparable - and, yes, as so many at the roundtable are . . . ("Aye, an incomparable lot, the whole of 'em. BUT, well, pay no attention, lest ye be Romanized . . .") Ya think composer's going to look to skewer me now? I can't trust many of the rest - 'Ladies and gentlemen!' for their Christian gentleness and politeness. (In 'Homeschooling' because the forums have too few 'mains', maybe? It would get majorly lost in the heavy flow of 'Faith and Life' - maybe, we could have put it in 'Sports' - 'hunting season is open on PS!' ['Twould deflect those gunning at the poor - in their eyes - Holy Father.] And, that may demonstrate, huh?, that it is majorly off-topic as an off-topic anywhere? 'Shoot the topic, but not the subject', a la sin and sinner.) Saint Thomas More was more inclusive with conjunctions - probably a holdover from family and Privy Council. 'Be not-the-first . . .' - well, like the Lord's 'be last to be first' - good advice, ma'am. But, what if no one shows up to be first? And, maybe, others show up to check the item because one of us found it worth commenting? (I DO so whine, don't I?) Not boorish but of a jaded nature - both? - hmmm - the old fogey will consider . . . I remain your obedient servant, but God's first, Pristinus Sapienter (wljewell @catholicexchange.com or ... yahoo.com)

Do notice - below - my decision to abide your and that-other-person's suggestions. Funny you should mention my 'enthusiasm for life'. It has come upon me several ways and times this Christms season that in being so ready for THAT life I am giving THIS life my all as I can, anyway. My spiritual director has mentioned that 'you do seem to go back to some trough into which you stored graces from your very Baptism'. I am indeed an old fogey, but one can do that with style and charm - I have lacked a number of things in this life of mine, but elan, flair, panache, hasn't been one of them. But, of a fact, I now have to be just so very careful and get about s-l-o-w-l-y. Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ, Pristinus Sapienter (wljewell @catholicexchange.com or ... yahoo.com)