Welcome to My Parlor ...

 

It was cool and gruesome at the same time.  The fly that I had smacked with the swatter had fallen onto the bathroom countertop and he wasn't "quite" dead yet.  He fell underneath the edge of this fabric basket thing that holds my blow dryer and brush.  And there, before my wondering eyes, appeared a tiny spider that dropped down and began wrapping the fly in its silky web threads.  The fly moved a little, and the spider came at him from another side.  It was almost like watching a professional boxer take swings at a smaller scarecrow.  Odd.  Fascinating.  Out of proportion.  It was like watching the rawness of films from Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom from back-in-the-day.  My day, that is.

It made me think about what my friend Bob always used to tell me and his wife, "The devil is in the details."  He repeated that phrase, oh, about 40 million times and I was never quite sure what he meant by that...  until watching this tiny spider wrap up his ill-gotten fly.  He had a pre-existing agenda and he just happened to be Right Place - Right Time.  The devil doesn't have to be Bigger than you, he just has to be opportunistic like the spider.  

In life, rare is the person that is destined to be a serial killer or axe murderer... a big evil, like the fly swatter that didn't quite finish the job.  Much larger is the population that whittles away their own integrity bit by bit.  A small lie here or there.  An extra something you take even though you are not entitled to it.  A hurtful comment about someone else.  A motive that looks good on the outside but only because it's covering over self-aggrandizement.

In this season of running around trying to make the holidays "perfect," let's take the time to reflect on the areas where we get pulled off just a little bit.  What are the spiders that are wrapping us up in a moral death-shroud?  Resolutions to improve ourselves don't have to wait for New Year's Eve.  We can do them every single evening all year round before we go to bed.  Or, we can daily try to be more circumspect about the people, places, and things that have potential for us to go off-track.  And, if the lights are on Monday night at a church near you, you could go fix it there.  Don't miss the most important thing because you got lost in the hustle and bustle... and have a truly Merry Christmas.

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"Don't Try this at Home"

 

The young woman on the back of the chestnut thoroughbred was racing full-tilt through the California desert, chased by sheriffs on horseback as well as in four-wheel drive police vehicles.  The eye-in-the-sky sheriff's helicopter hunted her down like a notorious felon.  She rode that horse with passion and purpose - to save his life from the proverbial Glue Factory villains.  The owners of the ranch watched the pursuit on television with bated breath.  That horse dove down a cliff and they both remained in tact and on-the-move.  It was a chase better than I had ever seen on television.  

REAL LIFE is nothing like television, let me be a Witness to this, particularly on horseback.

Thirty years ago (and likely 50 pounds ago) I found myself on horseback in the Berkshires.  Most unfortunately, I was not being pursued by handsome sheriffs in any sort of fashion.  The first twenty minutes of the ride brought me to a very premature conclusion that this horse I was riding on was one step away from being party to Elmer's... I could not get him to move beyond a very reluctant saunter.  No, "saunter" is not a term used for horse activity, like, for instance: "loping," "cantering," or "galloping."  Nope.  This horse was moving so slow it was almost going backwards.  

I kicked my heel softly into his side.  No results.  I made that clicking noise inside my cheek.  Nothing.  I kicked again.  Nope.  "Just can't think of a good reason to be moving much beyond a saunter," he seemed to say.  Finally, I whaled my right heel into him and he took off like a launched missile.  I was shocked, initially, and then scared.  With good reason.

He was hanging to the left side of the trail and zooming along mighty close to the trees.  Some of the branches were low; I had to duck down more than once.  Then, I felt the saddle shift slightly to the left.  I don't know if I had time to say a profanity but I'm sure I thought it pretty loud.  One thing was for sure, he was having his revenge on me quite clearly.  I knew if that saddle was looser than it should be it could shift me enough off the left side of him into one of those trees that kept whizzing by.  So I did the initial pull back on the reins, which amount to ... not surprisingly, NOTHING.  Finally in an act of desperation, I released my left hand that was clutching the saddle horn, took both reins in hand and gave him a choke back that HE WILL REMEMBER for the rest of his born days.  

And that son of lightning stopped on a dime.  For the brief but fearsome time that he took me on the Ride 'o Death, my posterior was not in the saddle, it was about four to six inches in the air above the saddle.  Until the dime dropped.  And so did my seat.  The slam of the point of contact jarred my right hip and I felt instant numbness down my entire right leg.  I did not know if my leg would hold me when I eventually would dismount at the barn twenty minutes later.  

For the last twenty years, I have remembered that ride, most particularly if I am standing for a long time because I get radiating nerve pain down that leg.  I tried physical therapy  years back with some limited relief.  I accepted that this would be my "new normal..."  Until the past few months when my hip itself has started to act cranky.  I think of that horse now, mostly when I lick the glue on the back of an envelope.

So if for some reason you thought episode two of "Wildfire," which I described at the beginning of this article, was something someone should try and might enjoy, I beg to differ... as I limp down the sidewalk.  Just another television moment that is not as great in real life as it was on the screen. 

Just sayin'.

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Grasping at Chips

 

First I saw one, then there were a handful.  I couldn't believe my luck!  I pulled into the parking lot of an elderly living center with my friend and let her out to go fetch a grocery list from one of the seniors.  I had stepped out of the car to stretch my legs, looked down at the pavement wet with rain, and noticed -huh- a small red disc about the size of a quarter with a bronze-colored rim around it.  I shouted out (like anyone cared), "IT'S A BINGO CHIP!"  I couldn't believe my luck!  I swung around and closed the car door and stooped down to pick it up.  Although it was a bit muddy, it seemed no worse for the wear.

My eyes followed to the next bingo chip, and the next, and the next.  It was as if they were flung in an arc.  I stooped down to pick up some more but my gaze followed the arc ... to see ... more chips ... and yucky cigarette butts, and unmistakably, a piece of either cat turd or little-dog  turd.  I felt my stomach roll and my hand purposefully dropped the three or four chips on the ground.  

All of my investigative skills kicked into play in a flash of realization:  Someone's trash bag must have leaked these things out.  Perhaps it had a tear in the bottom.  My mouth felt funny.  The thought of me handling these little discs that had been sitting in the bottom of a trash bag with cigarette butts and kitty poop made me want to hurl.  I couldn't wait to get to the hand sanitizer on the door pocket of my car to purify my hands!

This is a very important lesson I did not miss and I wanted to share it more formally like this:

Sometimes we grab at things, jobs, relationships, whatever that catch our eye.  The glitz, the potentiality, the sparkle makes us lose sight of the bigger picture.  And frankly, I think there ALWAYS is a Bigger Picture.  We get caught in a moment and make a quick decision and find ourselves handling garbage.

So the next time you have to make a decision, don't do the impulse-buy approach.  Think.  Walk out of the store and delay the choice.  Sometimes it only takes five minutes to realize you didn't really need to buy that item that seemed so desirable in the moment.  

Before you commit to a path, take the time and sit with it.  Even if that means the agony of rolling the thing back in forth in your mind a few hundred times.  Or if it means, "Here, Lord, I put this in Your capable hands."  "Wait.  I want to take it back for a minute."  "Oh.  Okay, here it is, for you Lord."  

Be patient with the process.  Good things come to those that wait.  Drop the bingo chips.  You didn't need them anyways.

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My Mission

 

A friend recently commented that I may have "missed my calling in life."  I think I certainly did.

On my refrigerator for 12 years, and tucked into the cover of my Bible for three decades at least before that is this writing from John Henry Cardinal Newman:

I, Why?

God has created me to do Him some definite service:

He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.

I have my mission - I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.

I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.

He has not created me for naught.

I shall do His work.  I shall do good.  I shall be an angel of peace ...

The picture looks nothing like me, except for the birds swirling around.  LOL.  

What is YOUR mission?  Will you be an angel of peace with me?

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Driving Me Batty

I know exactly where my tennis racket is.  It's hanging in it's protective sleeve right outside my kitchen door in the garage.  I have had the same tennis racket since high school.  I consider it more of an omen than a piece of sporting equipment.  It has served its purpose well.

In the last place I rented, a casual comment by a contractor set many things into motion like wildfire.  I had asked  him to come look at one thing; he started snapping that tape measure all crazy-ass in every direction and telling me that "for 2 grand, I can give you a whole new kitchen."  I told  him that the landlord would not be thinking in that direction.  I tried to re-direct him to the task at hand (I now forget what it was).  

He picked up a piece of broken tile from the kitchen floor.  He held it up to the light and showed me how the fibers were sticking out horizontally between the two pieces.  Then he said the A-word.  "Asbestos."  He advised me that I would have to move out of the house, it would have to be torn out and trucked to a special dumping grounds west of us about two hours.  I felt sick to my stomach.  I did not know how I would begin to move out, even temporarily, with a fairly big dog and about ten cockatiels at the time.  So I made the call to the Landlord and broke the news.

Incredulous, he asked, "How do you know it's asbestos?"  I replied:  the contractor said so and showed me the fibers sticking out of the tiles ... the tiles I have been walking on BAREFOOT for a couple of years now.  I think asbestos is mostly airborne when it's broken up and you don't get it through your FEET, but nonetheless I was a bit overwhelmed.  Nothing happened That Day.  But the next day when I came home from work ...

The door to the kitchen was wide open.  My landlord's son and girlfriend were on their hands and knees slapping large adhesive tiles OVER the asbestos flooring smaller tiles.  Apparently, Someone in the Zoning office suggested this as a quick-fix:  just seal-over the smaller tiles and nothing asbestos will float into the air... well, until someone ELSE decides to tear that floor up and make it something else.

That night, with the tiles all in place, and me sleeping on my bed with my dog Timbyr at my feet, I breathed a sigh of relief.  The drama was over.  Or so I thought.  As I drifted off to dreamland, I thought came to me, "why does it seem like a bird just flew from the kitchen through to my bedroom?"  Ahhh, my birds in the other room safely in their cages ... then SNAP my eyes popped wide open:  yes MY birds were in cages.  Then this was a ... BAT!  And it zoomed through my bedroom again.  The dog went berserk.  I picked up the phone and called the Landlord (because that's what they get the big bucks for!).  He sent his teenage son over.  

Let's be honest, the kid was more awake than adults can be at that time of the night, so he was clearly the best guy for the job.  He said, "yeah, no big deal," and went into the kitchen and started waving his arms around which freaked the bat out way more.  Remember, bats are kind of small, but they do carry rabies, so this was not the preferred method of removal.  Somehow in all the who-hah, my trusty tennis racket and some kind of a garage rag were commandeered for the task, but when the Landlord walked in and left the door open, my big dog took advantage of the situation and bolted into the night.  So there I was in my pajamas and bathrobe running down the side street trying to get the dog back.

When I returned, breathless, but with dog in tow, the kid handed me my blood-stained tennis racket and threw the rag with its contents into the trash barrel.  We all said, "Thank God that's over," and they went home and Timbyr and I went back to bed.

The next day, when I told my lunchmates at the hospital about the activities, one of the physicians said pitifully, "Aw, that's too bad.  Bats eat 800 mosquitoes a night.  He wouldn't have hurt you."  I was floored.  Veterinarians everywhere warn of the transmission of rabies via bats, yet somehow this person thought that the bat "wouldn't hurt me."  Then I just shifted my brain from annoyance to wondering what poor slob got the lab task of dissecting a bat to count dead mosquitoes ... 50, 80, 100, or was that 98... 542.  

For now, I keep the deadly tennis racket readily available.  With its history, I think it is better placed in the garage than on the tennis court.

##########################

What's the Big Deal about Forgiveness anyways?

 

It sounded so ugly when it came out.  One of the nicest guys I know said, "I don't get mad; I get even."  His intention was to sound funny or somehow like he was brimming over with machismo.  But, as I said, it just sounded ugly.

It made me wonder how many times I have said something that just came out and made me look like someone I am not.  I think it is important to take stock of what comes out of our mouths ... in moments when we are trying to impress people with who we are, or who we think we are.  I am so busy pulling my size 8.5 foot out of my mouth I barely have time to straighten myself out.

If you are okay with living in that cycle of:  blah, blah, blah + Time = Self-Condemnation for three times as long, then have at it.  Frankly, I'm done.  If I don't stop sooner rather than later, I will have to start sleeping with my shoes on just to protect my mouth.  Yeah, don't picture that, it's just plain silly.

Recently, one of my women friends and I went out to dinner.  She said to me, "We talked about Forgiveness at my Women's Group at church last week.  I wanted to run something by you."  I will admit rather sheepishly, okay, maybe not so sheepishly, that the Type-A in me with two Theology degrees really loves to be consulted on things Theological.  So she and I had an interesting sharing of ideas regarding this topic.  I told her that one thing that really frustrated me was when the secular media starts talking about forgiveness in places where, I feel, it (the Media) does NOT belong.  They cannot be the arbiters of moral decision-making. I will give you two uncomfortable examples of this.

#1)  Chappaquiddick.  You say that word in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to anyone who is over 40 years old and heads start shaking sideways.  If you don't know the story I will tell you this in a nutshell.  A young woman went to a party that was attended by the then young and handsome Senator Ted Kennedy.  He offered to drive her home but he was, unfortunately, as we say where I come from, "three-sheets-to-the-wind."  That means he had no business behind the wheel of a vehicle.  Long story short, Mary Jo Kopechne did not make it home that night because the vehicle ended up sinking in the water and she was trapped in it.  Senator Kennedy walked home, soaking wet from his escape from the vehicle.  He did not immediately report the accident, nor the young woman whom he left behind drowning in a submerged vehicle.  

The Media had a feeding frenzy.  But the question asked was:  Will the people of Massachusetts forgive Senator Kennedy for this tragic accident (if that is what it was) and let him retain his seat on the Senate?  And to this question I say:  You asked that question to the wrong people.

Why is it, when something happens on a big scale, the responsibility is handed to The People, posing the question if THEY forgive.  I think forgiveness in this situation lies in the hands of: the deceased young woman who was abandoned because her presence in the Kennedy circle was an inconvenient trifle; the family of this woman who was left to grieve and, adding insult to injury, became further victims of the political-media circus; and God Himself.  Oh, um, I almost forgot:  his wife Joan who was pregnant with their third child at the time... whom she subsequently miscarried.

The People re-elected Kennedy.  Mr. Kopechne had the vehicle towed up onto his lawn as a token of The Grave Injustice.  If you want to hear a fascinating interview, get ahold of Representative Bob Dornan  interviewing the grieving father.  So, aside from the power was put in the hands of the wrong people, (not like we've never seen it go bad like that before in history when mobs decide) a career became more important than a life lost.  Now, take the politician you think the least of and put them in that situation.  How would you vote?  See my point.  It becomes a political decision, not a moral one.  A  true gentleman who was party to a tragic accident would have STEPPED DOWN and lived a quiet life behind the scenes, repairing his family and being humble and contrite about the whole thing.

#2) The Blue Dress.  Notice I did not say "the devil in the blue dress."  I have had an epiphany on this story, let me tell you how.  So, never running out of evil in Washington, someone named Bill who was married to a famous Senator named Hillary, got caught in a closet with someone other than Hillary.  And The People were again asked, "will you forgive this man?"  And The People voted yes.  Somehow.  BUT.  Again, I'm saying, that the power to forgive is in the hands SOLELY of the one who was offended.  While The People were about the business of white-washing a very vile episode, a young woman's life was being destroyed for one STUPID - very, very STUPID - and disgusting event.  

Not until you hear the story of the woman caught in adultery who is dragged (by men) before Jesus and asked that He judge her, can you truly appreciate what happened to Monica's life in Washington.  (cf. John 8:1-11)  To be made into a public spectacle for personal indiscretion is not a desirable thing.  But why is it the woman is made out to be the bad guy, so to speak, and whomever the man is - in both the Biblical story as well as the presidential story - get to go on with their powerful, influential lives?  Hmmm.  Riddle me this one, Bat Man.  

Scrolling through You Tube last year, I found a TedTalk presentation by Monica Lewinsky.  Initially I just scrolled by, but then I felt drawn to  hear her speak her peace.  Wow. Never did I surmise that she was yelled at and ridiculed in the streets.  I did not stop to consider that not only did she experience shame, but fear and depression.  She shared that her parents made her shower with the bathroom door left open a crack, because they feared she would take her own life.  So, for anyone to judge her that was not personally involved or impacted by the event, is just plain out of line.  It builds a culture of hate.  

As Jesus said to the woman brought before Him on that day, "Where are your accusers?"  Apparently the guys that dragged her there took off when He asked them which of them had not sinned. They dropped the rocks that they were fixing to throw at her and skulked away.  He finished by saying to her, "Now, neither do I forgive you.  Go and sin no more."  Again, wow.  In order for Monica to "go and sin no more" she had to leave the country and start a new life elsewhere.  Meanwhile back in Washington ... the man got to stay in his job.  What would a real gentleman have done?  I guess we will never know.

Think for a minute if you knew any person who did the same thing in a closet at their job - would that person remained employed?  My point.  When you are handed the highest honor the American People can give you, "Please be our President.  Be the face of America to foreign nations.  Stand for Justice.  Stand for Truth.  Stand for Freedom and all that is Noble."  When this person blunders it to such a degree, how in the heck can they be deemed "fit for Office," in fact I am wondering how that person can go on diplomatic meetings and not feel ashamed to show his face in public.  I am wondering that, not out of judgment, but because there were TWO people in that closet.  And one of them can't live here anymore, and the other one goes on speaking tours.

A couple of weeks ago, the Gospel readings in Mass were all about forgiveness, particularly Matthew 18:21-35 (translation for those who need it:  Gospel of Matthew.  Chapter 18.  Verses 21-35.  That's how we find stuff in The Book.)  The story is fascinating.  In the context of a culture that had slaves and servants and other kinds of domestic help (which I desperately need), a very generous Master writes-off the great debt of one of his servants.  The servant was married with a family, and begged the Master to forgive him.  Without any other reason to do so other than his benevolent nature, the Master wrote off the entire debt.  (I would have put the guy on an installment payment system but that would wreck the whole point of the story.)  

Next scene in the story, another servant approaches the recently forgiven servant and asks for forgiveness for a much, much lesser debt.  The forgiven servant does not forgive him.  In fact, he grabs him and throttles him and demands his money back.  The Great Master heard of this through the grapevine of  his workers.  They were really shook up.  The Master became very angry.  He called that servant back and gave him the what-for.  Rightly so, since he had forgiven such a great debt, could the forgiven one not do the same for a much lesser debt?

It is a great story.  And we all would like to think if we were IN the story we would be either the Benevolent Master, or a very good example of a servant who would forgive.  We like to think that way of ourselves.  But sometimes we are not that great.

I am not, at this point, going to share my recent story of how someone I trusted to do the right thing wronged me and cost me a lot of money.  Because that story is not over yet.  It will finish off beautifully when the Lord is finished doing His work.  And I must wait.  

I do want to say this about Forgiveness:  All of these great examples are daunting.  In our stubbornness, we refuse to let them inspire us to be better, healthier people because we wrongly think forgiveness is a gift we are giving to the person who wronged us.  But the Forgiveness is not really for the other person .... The Jerk, as it were.  Forgiveness is for ME.  It is for YOU. Here's why:  Because when I hold onto that bad mojo of unforgiveness inside my gut, it makes me sick.  I (or you) as a human being run the risk of these illnesses:  elevated blood pressure, nervous symptoms, stomach troubles, heart attacks.  I (or you) as a human being run the risk of these emotional illnesses:  paranoia, obsession, vengefulness, a spirit of unforgiveness, and separation from the peace of God.  So as I wrap this up, so you can digest it all, I ask you to consider this:  Hasn't the person already done enough wrong to you, that you would let them keep on robbing you more and more by the unforgiveness you are holding inside of you?  Isn't it time to do YOURSELF a FAVOR and cut it loose?

Forgiveness does not mean there are not consequences.  Sometimes there has to be consequences - legal, financial, material, whatever.  But other times these forms of Justice cannot be achieved.  Perhaps the right cannot be restored.  Yet we can choose to not harbor the grudge, roll it over in our minds at night, seethe at the mention of the person's name.  We just have to take out our mental scissors and cut that piece of history out of our brains and set it aside, to not keep running back to the picture over and over again.  Better yet we can pray for the person that is our enemy.  Pray that he or she come to know Christ so that they can feel all of the forgiveness the Great Master has to offer and amend his/her life.  In the end, I think we all want to live together in peace.  

"And let the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus."  (Philippians 4:7)

In the words of my immortal friend, Saint Sabina of Tempe:  "Let go and Let God.  That's what I do."

Displaced Faith or Misplaced Faith? (#5 in Series - False Allegations)

 

“Thou Shall Not Bear False Witness”

I dedicate this section to the tzadikim, I know you are out there.  I pray for you.  You are not forgotten in this mess.

There is a Hebrew story told by a holy rabbi that at any given point in the world there exists 36 Tzadikim, or righteous ones, and if even one of them were missing, the world would come to an end.  Amen.  Amen.

It was a face I never expected to see on the front cover of the newspaper.  A face of a man who had been dragged out of his rectory-home in the middle of the night by the police and hauled down to the station for “processing.”  His picture looks like they roughed-him-up.  He appeared quite distressed.  I read the article and shook my head sideways – this cannot be.  And so I wrote to the journalist, “You are guilty of Trial-by-Media.  Every man is due his day in court.  In THIS COUNTRY people are ‘innocent until proven guilty.’”  She wrote back to me, “Is there something I should know?”  At that point, my beloved little Catholic mother would not have approved of what I muttered underneath my breath.

Be clear about this:  Media exists to Sell media.  Good news isn’t particularly interesting.  Something very base in the human person feeds on the details of the grime of life.  It is that grist that sells newspapers, magazines, movies, etc.  If this were not so, how does the National Enquirer still exist?  We all know it’s a load of hooey.  And yet people pay good money to read it.  Baffling.  Look at what people are watching on tv:  very little graphic injury, violent murder, appalling crime scene is left to the imagination.  People pay for cable TV and streaming all of this junk often over a hundred dollars a month per household.  So, in all points, we have to keep foremost in our minds:  Follow the Money.  Where the money is, the story will be.  Even if the story is just an allegation.  Even if it is not true.

And perhaps you are wondering how I responded to her… what I said was along these lines: “The man that has been accused is a man I have spoken to personally in the privacy of my own confession.  He is good.  He is virtuous.  He is also admittedly handsome, and with little imagination I could see where a single mother with kids would be attracted to his grounded-ness and make a pass at him.  (I was hypothesizing, I had no information.  Genesis 39:7-20 tells a similar story).  If he refused, she could destroy him with an allegation because the reality is, a real predator would be less likely to abuse children in the same family because one weak link could spill the beans.  The story doesn’t make sense.  It is not in keeping with the person I have always seen him to be.” 

Weeks later on the inside of the newspaper in a tiny corner was a very short statement saying he had been acquitted.  Unfortunately, the damage had been done.  His reputation was destroyed and he disappeared.  To this day, his name remains on the 2018 List of Those Credibly Accused.  It should not be.  The people who wrote in to the letters to the editor had shredded him up in a million pieces how could he stay in the local community and re-integrate in any way when his name had been utterly demolished?

So, here we are in 2023, a couple of weeks after the big announcement about Justice Payments to Victims and yet another allegation comes out.  My, what impeccable timing.  Get it in quickly, just to be sure you get your million. 

A local godly pastor said words to this effect about this recent allegation:  “The Father XYZ that worked with us has not shown himself to be inappropriate in any way.  That is not the Father XYZ that I have known.”  I am grateful the pastor said that much.  Many would have left those words UNSAID, which would only build the suspicions in the minds of the people.  Also, I imagine that the Good Priests walk a very careful path to avoid saying anything that may support someone who is justifiably accused.

But the Bad News didn’t stop there.  The mother and young woman have offered details of the incidents to the newspaper … which were printed.  “Nice job.”  It really is the only way you can nail a lid into a proverbial coffin with no real concrete evidence:  build an image in the public’s mind that paints a person guilty by way of the appallingly graphic details that would outrage anyone. 

Now I ask you, gentle reader, do you, like me, find it difficult to un-read graphic allegations in the light of proven innocence later on? 

And where was this girl’s father when this was going on?  Why is he silent?  Why did it take so many years for this girl to come forth and, “oh, by the way Mom …”  How old was she when she was texting with him?  Is there a record of those texts as proof? 

I ask these questions to enlarge the scope of what we are looking at.  Frankly, in this case as well, I find it all unbelievable.  If for some reason this is a valid accusation of yet another Bad Actor, I think we are so far away from stopping this mess we need another alternative.  Putting the entire laity through the “Safe Environment” courses is not working.  Offering Justice Payments and bankrupting every single church in the diocese is not the answer.  Why the employer of clergy has to take on the lawsuits at all is kind of confusing to me.  But maybe I’m just not that smart.  If I worked for a regular company and made inappropriate and unwelcome advances, I would be summarily fired.  That would be that.  Any lawsuits would be aimed at the offender, not the employer. 

By the way, Safe Environment training does not work.  Oh, oops, did I say that out loud?  Yikes.  A story … from a land far away … quite a long time ago …

I popped in to the parish dance to see how things were going.  There was a handwritten sign on the entrance door stating, “Authorized Personnel Only beyond this point” or some such thing.  It was put in place by the lay volunteer who was running the dance.  I walked in the door and was questioned – and had to pull rank and say, “I am on Parish STAFF, I am definitely Authorized.”  Good heavens, save us.  But apparently the person running the show didn’t look too carefully at the parent chaperone sitting at the door, or smell what was actually in his coffee cup.  Meanwhile inside the dance, the caterer who was an elderly woman was out on the dance floor with the junior high kids, particularly, the boys.  I walked up to another staff member and stood shoulder to shoulder.  I tilted my head to the side and commented, “Um, yeah, I would keep an eye on THAT situation…” and I walked out the door.  She verbally dismissed my concerns.  My post-event chat with the pastor the next morning confirmed my suspicions that things were managed poorly and there had been some fallout.  In Polish we have a saying, “Nie moj cyrk; nie moje malpy.”  I think that people, to some degree, only see what they want to see.  I have said since then to other youth ministers and catechists, “If something feels weird to you, it probably is.  Take the second glance.  Trust your gut.” 

I need to wrap this up.  Enough has been said at this point.  Except for this.  This morning my mind stirred up thoughts of the writings of the early American pastor Jonathan Edwards.  He was famous for writing a piece called “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”  He paints a portrait of the sinner, like a spider, hanging on a thread over the mouth of a cavernous hell.  (Much like I picture the predators to be.)

While on the one hand he implores, “And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open, and stands in calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners…” he wraps his sermon up with, “Therefore, let everyone that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come.  The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation:  let everyone fly out of Sodom.”

Pray for your pastors.  Pray for the leadership.  Pray for our children.  And pray for those who bear false witness, their judgment, I imagine, shall be harsh for they destroy the name of a good man and the peace of the community. 

“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each may receive his due for what he has done … the good and the bad.”  (2 Corinthians 5:10).

The ridiculousness of this entire situation cannot continue.  It must not.   So help us, God.

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Displaced Faith or Misplaced Faith? (#4 in Series - Money)

 

The Truth About Money

You do not have to even take your shoes off to feel it.  The ground beneath us is rumbling.  It is a shaking from the bodies of immigrant Catholic grand and great-grandparents of this and other Diocese(s) rolling in their graves.  And I don’t blame them one bit.  They came to this country in many cases with barely the clothes on their backs.  They worked in factories and on the farms for days on end and hours more than 40 a week to build a new life here that mattered, that had dignity, honor, meaning, and sanctity.  They sweat and sacrificed to establish homes, families, and churches.  They treated their pastors like princes on pedestals for the role they were to serve in the faith community.  Often they sacrificed the luxuries of life so that the church, too, would have a bright future with a “nest egg” being set aside for days to come.

And here it is that very money, donated and saved at quite a personal cost – in some cases akin to the Biblical story of the Widow’s Mite – is being laid out in extravagant amounts to do WHAT?

I know you too are asking this question:  WHY such huge, pre-emptive, it seems, pay-outs relative to the diocesan scandals?  Before I attempt to reason an answer to that seemingly rhetorical question, I will say what the money WILL NOT, indeed cannot do:

1)      Money will not restore lost innocence to the victims.  There is no applicable price tag on the sexual, spiritual, physical, and emotional health of the human person. 

2)      Money will not adequately compensate:

a.       A child for his/her victimization

b.       A family for its heartache

c.       A psychologist for having to help unwind the emotional mess, should a person be brave enough to seek counseling

3)      And Money certainly won’t relieve a predator and his allies from culpability and guilt.

4)      Money cannot serve as a retroactive “evangelization tool.”  No one who left the Church because of this morally outrageous situation will return to it because the Institutional Church somehow miraculously appears generous by giving out money.  That ship has sailed.

A   And for those who still find it in their hearts to gather with faithful people to pray on a weekly basis, the money/pay-out seems just one big confusing and outrageous decision … made by many bishops across the country in response to litigation and fears thereof.  Tell us it won’t come from Sunday collections, as if that makes it all good.  You are decisively robbing our grandparents and expecting us to be okay with that.

As I slip my gypsy turban on and take out my proverbial crystal ball, I will tell you the future:

A)      We already know these scandals have bankrupted the diocese across the USA.  No news there, but wait …

B)      Now this leeching of money from the individual parishes will weaken each parish’s ability to function … and survive.

C)      The responsibility will roll to “we the people” to do all the raffles, bake sales, spaghetti dinners ad nauseum to keep our parishes in the black financially.  We don’t mind supporting our parishes, but we DO very much mind cleaning up someone else’s MESS from a systemic failure of oversight and accountability.

I find it disgustingly ironic that the first area of ministry to suffer in the wake of the scandals is actually YOUTH MINISTRY.  For example, the Faith centers closed.  Or was that because they were ministering to high school students in neighborhood-based centers as stand-alone ministries that helped kids but didn’t always “feed” bodies and envelope dollars back into local parishes.  It’s all about the kids, until it’s not.

Weekend retreats, where we the laity did our best work with teens, were cut down to day-only events.  Retreat centers closed.  Pastors that didn’t know what a good youth minister did wouldn’t even pay a living wage to get it started back then.  Few want to touch youth ministry with a ten-foot pole as it is.  I want to acknowledge that the GOOD priests are suffering, and probably afraid to be falsely accused (which has happened at least three times now that I am aware of).  And yet the online newspaper doesn’t update the 2018 List of those with Credible Allegations in order to restore the reputations of those falsely accused.  Newspapers, in whatever format, exist to sell news.  Bad news sells.  Restoration of dignity gets lower left corner of page 4, three sentences.

Oh, and lastly,

D)      If you think we’ve seen a vocational crisis in the past 20 years, you haven’t seen anything yet, baby I tell you.  The only three things I recall during my lifetime that generate strong vocations to the priesthood were:  (1) the youth conferences at Steubenville; (2) adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in parishes; and (3) the entire papacy of Saint Pope John Paul the Great as he reached out to the youth of the world with clarity and relevance, inviting them to throw open wide the doors to Christ.  If we lose the ability to reach our youth with Biblical relevance and pure faith, the whole thing is going to go belly-up. 

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Displaced Faith or Misplaced Faith? (#3 in Series - Institutionalism)

 

An Unsinkable Ship?

You will not be likely to ever see me on a cruise ship.  Every time someone mentions it, my mind veers back to the phrase that was declared about the Titanic, “Even GOD couldn’t sink this ship.”  Need I say more?  Over-confidence in the designs of man paves a path to destruction.  The tower of Babel was also such an icon of man’s pride which ended up utterly destroyed.  (Genesis 11)

So is this Ship of the Institutional Catholic Church what the Lord was talking about when He said to Peter that the gates of hell itself would not prevail against it … This Church with too many really human beings in it… the good, the bad, the ugly?  That is a question that Practical Me asks Theological Me a lot lately. 

Before my contemporary theologian friends begin to argue the point, hear me out.  The Lord intends that His Bride, the Church, will be standing holy and spotless before Him on the last day.  This institutional thing that is bellowing and belching at the seams as it chugs along is not that Bride.  It can’t be. 

I don’t just propose, but I am actually saying:  If you put your faith in an Institution, no matter how well-intentioned, you are going to be disappointed.  The Clergy Scandals are clear evidence of that.  And even as I pound this out on my keyboard, the bishops meet in Germany to discuss whether or not certain moral behaviors are unacceptable in the eyes of the Church.  They must have misplaced their Bibles, and their brains.  Any change in moral code that goes against the clear teaching of the apostolic church and the people of God in Israel prior to that, is out of the question entirely.  Think about it.  IF … on the day that hell freezes over completely … IF the Catholic Church were to go ahead and sanction that behavior, then the seminaries will re-integrate with, you know, … and the predators of young boys will be back in the saddle again.  Beware, sheep.

Please.  Put your faith in the person of Christ.  In the God who is a Holy and Just God.  In the Spirit who brings about beautiful fruits in the lives of believers:  love, joy, peace, chastity, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control.  (Galatians 5:22).  In God, you will not be disappointed.  Everything else gets put into perspective.  Clarity and Truth emerge.  Strength to walk a better path is given.  That’s what I’m saying.  The Hebrew Scriptures have a concept called “The Remnant,” which refers to a group of faithful people that God keeps close when all else is breaking loose.  When culture fails and religious establishment fails and the people of God are purified, He Himself is with the remnant in the fire.  (Daniel 3:24)

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Displaced Faith or Misplaced Faith (#2 in Series)

 

Who Can Stand Before the Judgment Seat of God?  (Nahum 1:6)

That is a rhetorical question.  The answer is:  no one.  However, when it comes to sins, there are some things that are lesser, and there are some things that are greater.  And then there are some things that even a little bit is intolerable in the eyes of God or man.  In the natural world, the best example I can give you is seasoning food.  You can put a ¼ of a teaspoon of vanilla into a milkshake, or you can put a whole teaspoon and it will take a while before it is obviously way too much.  You can put a ¼ of a teaspoon of garlic into something and even more than that just makes you go, “bleck!  Too much garlic!”  Then there is GHOST PEPPER.  Last June, the waitress brought a tiny cup of ghost pepper to my friends at our table in a restaurant … wearing gloves.  She said, “Even if I get a bit of it on my fingertips and accidentally touch near my eye, I will be in a world of hurt.”  And then my buddy took a tiny bit in his mouth.  I have never seen a human being turn PURPLE before from a substance that miniscule.  And there you have it.

The scandals were erupting all around the country.  This priest.  That priest.  Bishops covering up.  Bishops declaring ignorance.  Bishops denouncing.  There were tales of cultural raunch that existed in a couple of seminaries.  It was like a lesson in Disgust.  Every story that came out was a little different; every story that came out was a little the same.  And we all wondered how many stories were left untold due to shame, fear, regret.  Or worse, how many adults were victimized as young people and are now scarred for life from the past and coping by substance abuse or ultimately committing suicide?  How could we abide all of this?  What the heck was happening?  How did the grooming-and-abusing process occur almost under our noses and we not see it for what it was?  And, for the love of heaven, How did an Institution that was created to be HOLY include and tolerate some leaders that were decisively, well, UN-HOLY PREDATORS?

Doing music ministry in parishes where the choir stands in front to the side of the altar has its advantages … and disadvantages.  Looking out in front of you are the smiling faces of fellow congregants praying, singing, listening, participating.  But then you, also, are in front of them so your reaction to any surprise is, well, right up front, literally.  Like the day that the Deacon of Disconnectedness stood in front of us and declared cheerfully and triumphantly, “The Church WILL survive this!”  I watched the question marks go across people’s faces as they processed that odd comment, even as I felt my own soul roar within me.  I was appalled that he would shift the focus from children who were abused to whether or not the Institution would make it.  He came up to me afterwards and shook my hand and thanked me for how well the song we played at the Offertory Procession “went with his homily,” which was, for my part, sheerly accidental.  He had misread me completely; I began to crunch his hand to lock him into the brief clarification we were about to have.  I said to him, “Actually I have a BEEF with your homily:  Nobody CARES about the Church right now.  Right now, we care about OUR KIDS.”  He looked baffled and walked away. 

The following week, our precious, godly pastor got up to the pulpit for his turn to weigh-in.  His religious order focuses on the theme “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace” for their way of life.  He told parents that because the topic he wanted to address was sensitive and “little pictures have big ears” he was going to use veiled language.  He explained that they should not be alarmed if they saw him wearing street clothes for a while instead of clerical garb when he is out in the community.  He felt just the sight of a man-in-black with a white collar was too much for some people.  Indeed, he had walked into a grocery store and saw a mother physically grab her youngster and pull the child towards herself while glaring at this priest. This is a guy who has the sweetest, kindest disposition.  If you knew him, you knew there was no malice in his heart towards children.  Then, to address the reality of the perpetrators, he held his left arm extended out from his side.  He declared, “I’ve got a solution:  I’ve got a rope and a tree.”  I guess the new theme would be, in this instance, “Make Me a Channel of Your Piece,” he was feeling the vibe of at least some of the people:  once the initial shock of what we are talking about tames down, you get just plain MAD.

I think Five Stages of Grief and Dying taught by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross apply handily to what we have walked through as a People.  The Denial process: “No.  This can’t be happening in our community.”  The Bargaining stage: “If we just put everyone through classes and pay money, this will all go away.”  The Depression: “This doesn’t seem to be dead quite yet.  Why the heck is that?!”  The Anger: “I’m mad as HELL and I’m not taking it anymore!”  The Resolution & Acceptance stage … um, I don’t think we are near there yet.  Probably because no one really knows exactly how to get there.

A few weeks ago, someone recommended I read EJ Fleming’s book Death of an Altar Boy.  I think that person did not realize I could write a book about some of MY experiences with the clergy.  I remember each of them by face and name:  The lewd comment to me and his snickering as one explained to his housekeeper, “I took a vow of celibacy, not chastity.”  Then there were the inappropriately-delivered hugs.  In one case, a college girl came to me and said, “Why do I feel so uncomfortable when he wants to hug me after Mass as I’m leaving the church?  He just pulls me right into his vestments and I want to pull away.”  I advised her just to exit via the other door and avoid the interaction.  (That was back in the day before the whistle blowing REALLY started.)  I have had more than one cleric personally deride me and/or my extensive educational experience, assessing me with a sneer as “so conservative”.  Then there was the misogynist who belittled every woman employee who walked into his office, to the point of making them cry, and two of them retired that year just to get that stress over with.  And these instances were not just one person; there were at least five+ that didn’t have “Gentleman” or “Respectful” as part of their character traits. 

Did they have people or parishioners who liked them as people?  Yes.  Of course.  Everyone has friends of some sort.  Did they help anyone or minister to anyone in their tenure as clergy?  I imagine so.  Two of them are no longer priests.  Yet there are also parishioners who, in the name of getting this process behind us, want to try and jettison through this uncomfortable purging stage and pretend it is not happening.  Perhaps those are the people who feel it’s someone else’s problem or do not know a victim personally … but I do.

I know of a young man who met an older gentleman (not clergy or church-related) with a PhD whom everyone just called, “The Doctor.”  The Doctor took this young man away on vacations.  He bought him a brand-new car for his high school graduation.  He showered him with presents.  The kid’s parents thought that he was a nice man who found their son as wonderful and worthy of good things as they did.  Mistake.  When something gets obviously excessive with gifts and trips, all the yellow and red lights should be flashing in the parents’ heads that says: “Grooming alert.  Grooming alert.  Predator in vicinity.”  The young man, after years of being abused and bribed to cover it up, finally came clean… and fell apart.  Then, after years of drug addiction, he took his own life.  I do not know where the “Doctor” is today.  But I hope he packed his marshmallows and a stick.  He’s going to need them.

“Jesus said unto them: ‘It would be better to be thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around your neck than to cause one of these little ones to fall into sin.”  (Luke 17:2)

So, in spite of my personal experiences, which I only hinted at here, I still read Death of an Altar Boy to learn more of the scope of the crisis because it happened in my home diocese of Springfield.  The one notorious cleric who so clearly had abused many young men, and most possibly murdered one of them, never served jail time.   According to the journalist’s research, the bungling of the evidence at the crime scene and disappearance of key items would have made for a difficult case “beyond reasonable doubt,” so he was a registered sex-offender on parole until he was 80.  Just when they were preparing to arrest him, he died of COVID.  To wit, there was implied connection between The Church, The Politicians, and The Law, in making sure this cleric did not have to face a murder conviction.

What I found most disturbing and curious about the book was the linking of adult males, clerical and non-clerical who seemed to have a ring of vice going in trafficking the young men.  How did this go undetected for so long?  For pages, Mr. Fleming named people and behaviors and events that the most genteel of readers would not be able to plow through.  It made me think of a conversation two or three guy friends at my college were having about their experiences in seminary back at the end of the 1970’s.  Both of them left the seminary due to the rampant sexually promiscuous behavior among the ranks.  Is it just me, or is it really very incongruous that someone would enter seminary to follow CHRIST and end up giving in to wholesale debauchery?  For this, there is no excuse.  And because of this, we are where we are as the Catholic Church.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but only those that do the will of my Father.”  (Matthew 7:21)

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Displaced Faith or Misplaced Faith? (#1 in Series)

 

Displaced Faith, or Misplaced Faith?  (Series on the Scandals in the Catholic Church)

(I hereby officially invoke my freedom of speech, my freedom of press, and my freedom in Christ.  Onward.)

Pre-amble

A few weeks ago in August, the pastors in our diocese were required to read a letter to their congregations at all weekend Masses announcing the intended settlements for victims of clergy sexual abuse.  We were told that this is what “Justice” required.  We were told that we, our immediate envelope dollars, would not pay for it but rather the reserves (savings, nest eggs) of each parish would.  We were told that this was for the abuses committed by clergy, coaches, and volunteers.  With all due respect:  Bullshit. 

If the clergy weren’t involved in this – to the staggering number over the decades – then the coaches and volunteers who were abusers would be left to their own resources to consider how to give “Justice” to victims.  I remember QUITE clearly how a youth ministry colleague came home from a Diocesan meeting of Directors of Religious Education & Youth Ministers at the very outset of this debacle back in the 1990’s.  She quoted Sister as saying, “If you, as a lay minister in the Church, have an allegation posed against you – even if it is false – you will NEVER do ministry in this Diocese again.”  Just the thought that the statement of a sophomore in high school who didn’t like the grade he/she got, or didn’t like me presenting the teaching of the Church on any topic could, with one FALSE accusation, destroy my ministry, my career, my reputation, my relationships with people who would not give the benefit of the doubt, made me absolutely ILL.  And yet it lodged in my mind that False Accusations are possible … and somehow that prepared me for the next thing to come… when someone I respected was falsely accused.  It also made me understand intuitively that the Church itself would NOT stand with its lay ministers (non-ordained, non-clergy) even if they are innocently accused.  How very Petrine. 

                    Peter was outside the courtyard as the trial of Jesus, the Innocent One, was going on.  “A                        servant girl came over and said, ‘You were one of those with Jesus the Galilean.’  But Peter                     denied it in front of everyone, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’  (The third time he                     was asked he replied) ‘I don’t know the man!”                                                                    

                                                                                                         (Matthew 26:69, 74)

I am going to tell you how my brain is processing this whole thing.  You may agree.  You may disagree.  Agreement is not my concern.  I have to process it from the parameters of my own faith journey, my own life experience, my own knowledge of good and evil as I have seen it.  But I do hope it makes you think.  And frankly, my intent is not to tear-down, but to throw the spotlight so that more Truth is evident, more dots are connected.  I want to strongly encourage you (and to remind myself) of two things:  Let us not throw the baby (our deeply personal faith + our relationship with the Lord and HIS faith community that is very essential to us) with the bathwater (our frustrations of how this has and has not been handled or managed over the years) AND that there are some VERY GOOD, VERY HOLY priests and pastors out there who are suffering from the fallout around them.  I am sure they pray every day to not become victims of false witnesses.

For those who are guilty, I have very few words:  May you be locked in a gymnasium full of angry Catholic parents.  You would rather that the court throws you into Alcatraz, you’d fare better.  If someone touched MY children and did such things to them, my family better take out a tape measure and start custom fitting me for my own orange jumpsuit.  Just sayin’.

So, I want to air-out a few things.  First, I want to talk about the Allegations themselves.  Then I want to talk briefly about the nature of institutionalism.  Then, I will ramble about the pay-outs, oops, I mean renderings of justice.  Lastly, I will talk about the good clergy.  I do not know how long I will write for, perhaps until I am out of steam.  We will see how it goes.

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"The Dog Ate My Homework" and other great excuses

 I was born around 5:35 p.m.  My mother missed supper that day because of me.  And I have been late to just about everything in my life by five minutes, no matter how hard I try.  I plan.  I calculate.  I set two alarms.   And, I am STILL 5 minutes late.

So I thought I would share some of the real life things that make me late... for entertainment purposes only...  

>I was walking my dog Timbyr one bright sunny morning before leaving for work.  I happened to notice in the tall grasses an incredible spider web.  It caught dew drops on it and they sparkled in the sunlight like diamonds.  I had to run inside to grab by camera so I could take a picture of it.

>I left the house a few minutes early, willing with all my might to be on time today.  I took the west-bound route to work and was reveling in the feeling that I was going to sit at my desk 5 minutes early with a victorious smile on my face.  I rounded the bend in the road and the police had blocked the entire road off due to a traffic accident just beyond them.  Not only was I not on time, I was later than I usually am late.

>Every morning when I let my three dogs out, there is a usual routine.  Valor and Sophia sleep in crates in my living room.  Madeline free ranges the house.  I open Sophia's crate.  I open Valor's crate.  He runs into Sophia's crate and grabs a chew toy or her favorite ball and taunts her to the doorway.  Meanwhile I am hopping on one leg because, well, "I gotta go" too!  I let them out.  Madeline parks her behind on the kitchen floor and refuses to go out.  Valor and Sophia get let back in, then Queen Madeline will go out.  I have a crook in my neck from looking over my shoulder to see if the youngest cat is lurking nearby to make a dash for it.  I do my entire morning routine, and then re-crate Valor & Sophia for the day so I can go to work.  I get in the car and start it.  I realize - dang - the dog toys need to go back into Sophia's crate so she won't be bored and crazy during the day.  I get out of the car.  I grab toys from the dog yard and bring them in to her.  I notice blotches on my floor, I look at the bottom of my shoe.  I think you know where THIS is going... I just want to say if I got them tee shirts, they would read:  "No one is in cahoots alone."

>I got in my vehicle a bit early trying to get my tardy self into shape... you've heard this before.  This time I took the east-bound route to work and got stuck behind a construction truck that was pulling forward in a way that I can only describe as "constipated" with similar sound effects.  He turned off on a side street; I moved my vehicle forward to find out what was slowing the construction truck down (more):  School buses.  Awk.

>I got into my vehicle and backed out of the garage.  I clicked the remote on the garage door.  Nothing.  I clicked it again.  Nothing.  I unbuckled my seatbelt, stuck my arm into the garage and hit the button on the wall.  I returned to my vehicle and started the process again.  Apparently when the temperature outside is less than 50 degrees, the remote is rather sluggish.  I wonder if I threw it out the window of a speeding vehicle how many pieces it would crack into when it hit the ground at 60 miles an hour.  Just sayin'.  

>I got into work and it was 8:28 a.m.  I was actually early - two minutes only, but I'm grateful.  Then I couldn't get my desktop to "wake-up" and let me log in.  I logged in at 8:34 am with a well-placed profanity and I walked over to our Everything Guy in the office to have him do something to my desktop computer.  I suggested blowing it up.  He chuckled.

>I got in to work and logged in at 8:34 a.m.  I was mad that I missed the mark again.  Then a thought came to me, "Refresh your screen."  I refreshed my screen and the computer logged me in as 8:45 a.m.  I marched myself over to our H.R. lady and asked her in my desperate, stressed-out voice to please look at her computer and note that it is not even 8:45 a.m. YET and my p.c. logged me in at 8:45.  How can this BE?!?  She had to call the software company and found out that if I am late beyond a certain time it automatically rolled me to the next 15 minute increment.  I did not know whether to cry or throw up.  It turns out that after reviewing ALL of the people who log in, only my log in was set up to do that.  I wanted to file for harassment, but the paperwork would probably be past the deadline.

>I left the house twenty minutes early because I wanted a coffee from you-know-where: Pink & Orange, America Runs On It ... And I got in line behind no less than NINE vehicles.  That particular store has a hard time moving the drive-thru traffic at a decent pace.  It is SO frustrating.  How early do I have to leave to not get stuck in the line?  Just asking for a friend....

I was not always late.  I am not late about ALL things.  My first term paper in college was ready THREE MONTHS EARLY because I was so nervous about doing well in college.  My peers laughed at me.  I got an A.  Laugh away, my friends.  

I am on-time for baby deliveries.  When a young mother calls and says, "I'm going to the hospital now," I can make it there within 30 minutes because my bag has been packed for at least six months beforehand.  

I am late for church and have become a "back-rower" as a result.  I don't mind it.  And if I know the music is going to be something other than engaging, I do not miss not participating in the Entrance Hymn.  Anyways, no one plays an Entrance Hymn for me.  Let's just say it is not necessarily an evangelism tool when no one really cares if you show up or not.  But that's a whole other topic.

How are my friendships impacted by me being late?  The people who can't handle it go away mad.  The people who forget that they have flaws, hound me about it, as if their nagging could change something that I have tried to change my whole entire life.  The people who forgive me everything show me a kindness I cannot muster up from within myself.  I do appreciate that.  It gives me a few special minutes to not feel guilty and crappy.  The people who are more-late than me (You know who you are!) make me feel better ... and it gives me someone to tease.

I can hardly wait to retire so that I can stop fighting this uphill battle.  But that is at least five years down the road, perhaps more.  So I keep on keeping on.  Does anyone have the time?  

One more for the road:

>As I scurried around the house getting one dog ready to go her veterinary appointment, I thought I should let all three out for one more potty break.  I have a fenced in side yard.  It is connected to a kinda fenced in back area ... and by "kinda" I mean:  I have wire-reinforced green snow fence that forms a long area for the dogs to run.  Snow fence, is primarily to prevent snow drifting but in this case, it was an economical solution to the need for a bigger area for the dogs to run.... except that it flexes a bit if you put pressure on it.  I let the dogs run, and Valor spotted the ducks hanging around the pond at the back of the yard.  He immediately went to the fence, leaned on it and with all his youthful enthusiasm, scaled right over it and went to the ducks.  He circled the green algae-laden pond and the duck taunted him from the center.  She glided in circles, her white feathering a stark contrast to the green sea of algae on which she paddled.  He couldn't stand it anymore:  he romped into the pond.  Already at this point, I had Madeline in her crate in the car to go to the vet's office.  I returned Sophia into the house for safe keeping.  I ran out to the back yard to call  him in, but no-dice, he wasn't interested.  He had found his true sport:  water + ducks and was not ready to stop.  Earlier that week, I had put nice pink seat covers on the inside of my vehicle.  I knew I had to make a sacrifice.  The only thing this dog loves hearing more than treats are the words:  "Let's go bye!"  I drove out to the backyard, parked the vehicle, lifted the tailgate and yelled, "Let's go bye!"  He came careening out of that duck pond (completely filthy and stinky), up into the tailgate, over the crate in the back seat, and onto the pink seat covers.  I made a big deal out of him coming to me... a good big deal ... because you always want to reward a dog for listening even if the thing that came before it was utterly naughty.  I drove him to the house, hauled him into his crate and left him there to stink until I could return from the vet appointment with Mad-Dog.  If I didn't love dogs so much, I wouldn't survive it. 🙏