The Dismantling of a Society

 It was far into the night when I heard a faint knock at my door. I opened to find a woman standing there with her one palm out-stretched, she apologetically asked me, “Can I borrow a thread … just a single thread … I have been to many doors, just begging for thread before it’s too late…” I almost asked her what color she needed, then I noticed in her left arm she held a worn and torn American flag. Her face was almost translucent, with a sort of timeless and simple beauty. Her dark hair, pulled in a bun behind her head, a white work apron hung over a navy blue full-length dress. Something deep in my soul stirred with a sadness that I would see this day, as I tilted my head sideways to accommodate the shift in reality that was happening in my brain. I opened the door and welcomed her in, in all her weariness and as she passed through my entry way it seemed odd that I could hear no shuffling of her feet. But that was to be expected.

She occupied the area of the chair with a somber humility. That flag was draped across, no, cradled, in her left arm with a reverential sorrow etched across her face. I had seen this look only once before in Michelangelo’s piece called “The Pieta,” where the Madonna held the broken body of Her Son. It was hard to be in the presence of this kind of sorrow. With tears in my eyes, I asked her, “… the thread?” She replied: “All I need is a thread of common sense from every person. Just a thread of common sense so we can mend this glorious banner and all that it stands for …” I tried to hide the cynical pursing of the lips thing I do when I hear hopes such as these, but I apparently failed, and that was when “school began to be in session.” She began:

Look what these foolish people have done to the most beautiful country, the most noble dream that was ever had by mankind! I knew the men and their wives behind them who dreamed a dream of peace, and prosperity and freedom. They knew that peace would only come for all when peace could reign in the hearts of each. It is not merely the absence of war, but the presence of God in the human soul. They knew that prosperity was not a hand-out, but a hand-to-the-plow, and to the anvil, and to any other godly task that sought to cultivate the earth and bring forth fruitfulness. They knew that freedom comes with a cost and demands a responsibility, lest it disintegrate into immoral license. Look what these foolish people have done! The dream that some paid for with their very lives, others have trampled upon while surrendering their own souls to lawlessness and debauchery.

She paused to wipe tears from both sides of her face with the edge of her apron. I hesitated to offer her a cup of tea, lest I remind her of the incident in The Harbor where people first reminded government that unbridled taxations are acrimonious to us. I asked her, “Do you know when the disintegration began, can you put your finger on that moment?”

There are key points that we see as we look over the past fifty years or so. But perhaps it was always a seed of evil here or there in someone’s heart that began the process. Until every heart is full of charity, true kindness to its neighbor, stability will always have a tentativeness to it. But there were key things that I think you can piece together:

Remember how important images are. (she told me, didn’t ask me) When that box with pictures in it was invented it began with stories of families, friends, humorous characters. Now it has degenerated to tales of unrighteousness. Think about what this current culture perceives as “entertainment” – murdering, adultery, cheating, blowing things up, etc. Some even watch what others do in the privacy of their bedroom as entertainment – that is depravity and theft of an unprecedented level. I realize you call them actors, but do they not lose a piece of their own soul when they portray wickedness for you to watch while you eat popcorn? It should nauseate you as a society, instead you generate more and more of it by rewarding the actors with money and status to feed their emotionally broken egos. Then when they kill themselves – literally or figuratively – you mourn their loss as if you ever really knew them as a person who had a soul to tend. It is appalling. And God in His heaven sees this and mourns it.

Then, some strange mentality began to invade the land about removing the Ten Commandments from society. Fools! Without a law, every man will be a law unto his ownself. Since selfishness runs rampant, that can never work out well for a healthy society. For example, in denying the commandment that states: “You shall honor your father and your mother,” You teach the children of the land that they no longer need to Honor their elders, and thus you bring forth a generation of willful, entitled, godless spawn. Then you wonder why, when grown, they kill their own children in the womb for convenience, and abandon the elders who loved them in homes for the aged. They do not play well in sandbox or greater society! They have no moral compass so the gift of freedom becomes merely license for the powerful who will eventually lord it over the ones with less power. They mouth the words of equality, but they make plans for their own rise to hierarchy. This insidious form of self-orientation has come like a foul odor into both institutions of the state and into organized religion. Where there is no godly order, there is no order at all that could respect the hearts and minds of the people. Freedom, when it is perverted to license, actually becomes the very worst sort of slavery – and it is deeply destructive.

Her tone continued with a sobriety and sorrow that I have never heard emanate from the likes of men:

And to the women – you who have permitted this foolish idea of sexual license to become the acceptable standard – do you see now how unstable families have become?! Those who do not honor the marriage bed before marriage are hardly capable of honoring it after marriage. Is it not for the purpose of raising families and creating loving societies that you should marry? Or has this, too, degenerated into selfishness? Passion separated from integrity is like a smoke without a fire: it can evaporate in a short time. The goal is to become the type of people who walk with God, and work for God as they build the society of love around their area of influence. You are to be the city on the hill, the beacon for humankind of what good order and fruitfulness looks like. Imagine the glory of an entire land submitted to this Law of Love!

And to the men – you who think you can gaze with passion upon a woman not your wife and not be found-out? You have turned away from the gift given explicitly to you – your own wife – and allowed a stranger, who is at the same time daughter/sister/wife of another revealed in her vulnerability on the screen for all to see. You victimize this stranger in your imagination, and then you wonder why the love has left your own home? You place the burden of distorted fantasy on the human being that lives beside you and expect them to meet your unbridled, strange passions with enthusiasm, and yet you are unpleasable. When the twin purpose of love and life is divorced from sexuality, all you have is frustration and disappointment. You have made this for yourself. The God of heaven is grieved by the lies you have let take over the most personal part of your hearts. Repent before it is too late!

She continued on with a frankness the likes of which has not been spoken even in churches for years. I know she could have said more but I was almost relieved when she switched to another topic.

Let us speak of a different kind of love for a moment. “Shema.” This word begins the greatest prayer ever uttered by the human heart “Shema,” “Listen.” “Hear O Israel, you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your mind and all of your strength. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

So, let us speak of the first Love – this country was built upon an acknowledgement of both divine destiny and a calling into personal accountability and relationship of each creature with its God. This is a mighty privilege and great calling. And yet an evil undercurrent began to pull this country away from acknowledging its Creator. I call it evil, because it is. A small percentage of those who have never had, or have lost their faith, or choose to reject the call to familiarity with godliness, have demanded that His Name not be spoken of or referenced in the documents and daily life of this country. That is ludicrous! They have free will because of this Creator’s gift and so they are free to reject, ignore, etc. but they do not have the right to tamp-out or steal other people’s rights in this regard. It is time for an era of Mutual Respect among persons ~ that each should be able to believe according to his own conscience without fear or reprisal or harassment.

It is very important that in the name of equality, inclusion and diversity, the very ones who cry for respect, shall not disrespect the others. Mutual respect must be across-the-board for everyone. You don’t have to like or agree with someone’s ideas. You don’t have to endorse things that are wrong or immoral, and shouldn’t have to finance the same with your tax money. But you do have to treat each individual with dignity and respect – even if they don’t treat themselves that way! The second part of the “Shema” prayer invites each to love his own neighbor as himself. Is not this respect the very foundation by which all community thrives?

This “loving” of the neighbor is the very thing the prohibitive (those that begin with “Thou shalt not…”) commandments were trying to achieve. Namely, when you do NOT covet your neighbor’s spouse or possessions, you love your neighbor. When you do not steal from a person, you love them. When you do not kill a person, you love them, truly. So, in what universe would abolishing the Ten Commandments achieve anything other than utter chaos?

Her logic was crisp and fair. A silence fell for a moment. She wasn’t done. She was just re-loading.

Have you seen the statue of the lady in the harbor with her lantern lifted for the world? There is an attraction to freedom that reaches out to both the righteous and the unrighteous. For those who are good, it offers an opportunity for a fresh start, for hard work, for pursuing life and love in an environment of possibilities and resources. But those possibilities and resources only exist because someone came earlier and worked hard to create and expand them. It is critical for moments of epic humanitarian crisis to not overshadow the need for a regulatory order. Without order, chaos ensues. If you look at the crisis already existing in your cities – fruit of a fatherless, abandoned society – that is the microcosm of what will happen if undocumented, unscreened people who have no aim to be contributors to the dream will create. It is important for good order, compassion, and clear heads guide this process. In order to achieve the right, bickering must stop among the parties, and common goals should be established. You cannot jeopardize the whole to salvage the parts. You must thoughtfully incorporate the parts that fit and re-direct those that do not.

And regarding those who came before, think back with eyes of wisdom to bring justice in areas where there has been injury. Were there not both natives as well as immigrants as well as captives that were harmed by the hardness of heart or evil within some from the past? Atonement for injustice means, not an entitling of the descendants of the offended - It should be At-one-ment with all parties in this present moment. How are decisions now made to benefit all parties? Do not disenfranchise someone in the present in an attempt to repair a breach that is decades old! Seek to harmonize all decisions and work for true equity and brotherhood. The path forward cannot be trodden alone, healing is cooperative by its very nature.

The clock ticked during a brief moment of silence as she gathered her wits about her. I felt almost inept to respond to her comments. I have lived amidst the storms of these past few decades and I wondered to myself why did she come now to repair and to warn? As if she knew my thoughts by seeing the furrow on my brow she said,

Ah, I have put my burden upon you. I can see it is late for you as well and you are tired. Really, all I wanted was to say my piece and find someone who could see the threads of common sense. I think you do hear my anguish. I am grateful for your hospitality, I must go now … please, do your part to repair our glorious standard …

She hoisted the flag draped over her left arm and I felt hot tears in the corners of my eyes and a twinge in my heart that almost felt religious. She moved smoothly across the room to the door, she did not need me to open the door for her, really, for as she passed down my driveway into the moonlit night, she vanished …

Good bye, Miss Betsy Ross, I will carry your words in my heart … you are a woman of wisdom and greatness … the world is not worthy of you.

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Letters to Jen Tilly Lane - Part 2.

 

Letters from the older brothers I never had comprised a handful of the 18 letters.  Each of these guys, except for one, were friends from college days.  We didn't date, we were just great friends.  We had lunch on campus, we bantered about Theology, we talked about Life.  And if I do say so myself, I have some very great Guy Friends.  It just seems to have so happened that we didn't end up falling in love with each other and getting married like, perhaps, it should have happened.  Sometimes you just have a gut instinct that a friendship is all this thing ever could be ... without me having to snuff you out with my pillow in the middle of the night if we had married.  I'm kidding about the murder part, obviously, but quite serious about the aggravation level that sometimes can be generated between otherwise good and decent people.   

One of the letters is a general rambling about nothing much - it was someone that was part of a group of us that were friends.  To be candid, he never quite grew out of the annoying phase of adolescent males.  This was before the trend of 27 year-olds living in their parents' basements playing video games.  I give him credit that he actually came to college and gave that a shot.  Who knows where he is now.  We had a mutual friend that I cared for very much and still think of him as a mentor and an inspiration.  Let's call him Guy.  About 15 years ago, I happened to be in the city where Guy was living at the time and we got together for a visit and heart-to-heart about all things that mattered to us.  Guy told me he spent some time with the previously-referenced letter writer who proceeded to purposefully capsize him in their water craft with the intention of drowning him.  He said to Guy, "I was jealous of you," as more of an explanation than an apology - although I can't imagine what the HELL you would say to someone you just tried to KILL!  Frankly, I have been surprised in the last decade of how many depraved people I have met along Life's Path.  

It reminds me of that great saying:  "Do not walk behind me, I might not lead.  Do not walk ahead of me, I might not follow.  Do not walk beside me either, just leave me the hell alone."  There are some people I don't even want to be Facebook "friends" with, he had moved himself into that zone.  

Then there are the friends you want to keep forever.  They are just plain golden - I have letters from two of those type of men.  Except in one case, we tag up on social media occasionally and talk about Theology, the good old days, what we are living through at the time, etc.  He married a nice wife, is raising some nice kids, and making a positive contribution to society.  I like him because we relate on a par - we always have been able to do that - and he doesn't require any fixing, or toleration.  It's just a really low-maintenance, long time friendship, where if we don't talk for years, we can pick up exactly where we left off.  There's really nothing messy or bad about it.  

In the other case, there is a sadness when I think about my other guy friend, let's call him Barnabas.  We were not college friends.  We were youth ministry colleagues at my first job and had forged a great friendship.  One of the hallmarks of these uncomplicated, brother-like relationships is the guys call me by my last name, instead of my first name.  It makes me feel like I made the baseball team or something.  I feel included and happy.  Except in this case, when he got married it changed.  Like, I never got a Thank You note for traveling to his wedding, or giving a gift.  And when I sent them a Christmas card a few months later it was returned to sender in a handwriting that was not his.  I can only surmise that she did not want to be my friend, and felt more comfortable just cutting me out of the picture.   If that is true, it kind of says that she does not trust him, which, as any mature adult knows, is the only bedrock upon which you can build a lasting relationship.  Once you begin the mistrust thing, your mind plays tricks on you, suspicions grow, and you destroy any shot at true and lasting happiness.  

I guess what I miss the most about being involuntarily cut out of Barnabas' life without cause is:  I may never get to thank him for the profound impact he had on my development as a youth minister.  He gave me a 1-page sheet of notes he took somewhere and they were so good, so useful that I actually photocopied them and gave them out to other adults that I was training, decades later.  His tenacity, his frankness made the teens trust him.  He was a good person with high moral standards and even though he was too humble to realize it, he was an absolute Beacon of Hope for people.  I always knew where we stood and I know that friendships that are that clear and true are rare for most people.  Like the last time he helped me move my apartment -he said, "Arabik.  This is the LAST time we are moving your crap anywhere!  No more new apartments!"  (I moved 6 times in 4 years.)  It turns out, it wasn't my last move, I left Arizona, but not before he left first.  That was a hard day watching one of your best friends drive off into the horizon.  Reading the letter from him will always make me remember the retreats we gave, the trips we took our parish teens on, and the like.  I don't remember him going bowling with us, though.  Somehow that would have taken the veneer off his coolness.  And he was definitely the coolest.

 The third guy letter was from, let's call him Patrick.  He packed his letter with holy cards of saints.  Ten to be exact, which included:  St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Gemma Galgani, and the Blessed Mother.  His letter was a simple catch-up on how he was pursuing his dream of religious life with a new Franciscan order that was being started, and his plan to teach high school... which I don't think he actually ended up doing.  He had been for some part of his life a lost soul, and the mercy of God found him and just changed his life.  He was exceedingly joyful for about 99.7% of the times that I saw him on campus.  He walked with such a spring in his step, that he at times appeared to be on a pogo stick.  The last thing he left me with in his letter was how much he loved me because "God's love & mercy toward me is so astonishing, I often dissolve into one big tear drop of gratitude." It would be my wish that every person could have a friend like this.... an absolute treasure.

At times upon reflection, one can be struck with the sense of gratitude for the characters in our lives.  It is a play, at times a Divine Comedy, with many different actors holding their roles as they interact with and influence us.  The last two letters I want to comment upon were friend women that were much my senior, and in fact have both gone on to their eternal reward at this point.  

I think of the University I attended as one big melting pot of kids from a variety of states and countries but all seemed to have a common zeal as people of faith.  It may not have been equal, but it was an important component for arguably 90% of the campus population.  We were not perfect, but we wanted at least to be good.  And I don't know how it is that my horizons expanded beyond the University on the hill to the community surrounding it, but somehow it did.  Back in the day before computers, there was this archaic thing called the typewriter.  And all papers submitted to professors were executed on such a machine.  However, typewriters had no spell check, and no grammar-check bluelines under phrases that needed a re-do.  The spell and grammar checker were one and the same:  ME, the typist.  I typed papers for countless University scholars, as we were, in the six years I was there.  People trusted me to keep their secrets on their psychology autobiographies, edit their documents, and then educate them later on what got changed and why.  I was a student typist and an English teacher all rolled into one.  

Then one day a senior citizen from the city called up to the campus looking for a student to type "something" for her.  And my name was provided as the go-to.  So she drove up to see me with her manuscript in hand and I had my assignment:  to type her memoirs.  Her handwriting can only fairly be described as:  Exquisite.  It was cursive at its absolute finest, as her letter now in my hand also attests.  In this letter she shares her excitement of how well the memoirs were received, and of an upcoming fancy dinner party she was preparing to attend with her husband.  She seemed to have quite a social life that involved lots of special desserts.  Her letter had a warmth and affection to it that makes me wish I had been able to give her more time.  She appreciated what I was able to do for her, but the typing project had also opened up her heart to make a new friend.  She shared that she had never gone up the hill to the University before, having lunch with me there was her first time, and she was received with both attention and graciousness by my fellow students.  Mrs. B, you taught me to be open to the new person, to make new friendships possible by opening the doors to "outsiders," and I hope to extend myself more to people in life.  Thank you for being part of the process of me maturing in friendships.

My last senior citizen letter was from a generous woman who opened her home to four of us young women (three from the University) for a summer of fellowship and ministry near Boston.  Let's call her "Faith."  Faith was a nurse at a Hospital in a major city.  She wore her nursing whites from shoulder to toe every day at work, and pulled her long silver hair up into a tight bun on her head.  She must have been an impeccable, flawless nurse.  But she also liked a good laugh, and good food, just like we her younger boarders did.  At that stage in our lives, two out of the four of us were obsessed with the idea of finding Mr. Right, and getting married.  I asked Faith once if she ever considered getting married.  She seemed to be looking through the sky to another world as she answered:  "Yes.  But he went to the war and did not come back."  My heart hurt for her in that regard.

With my friend Grace, I read her letter and pondered how much we have in common, despite the decades of age between us.  We are both people of faith; we love poetry and prayer groups; and we love the ocean.  I wrote a poem in her honor on behalf of we, her 4 boarders for the summer.  It was about The Lady by the Sea - and she told me often how it moved her to tears.  But it was she who took our faith and gave it the nautical analogy:  Abba Father is the Navigator of Life; Jesus is the Helmsman of my soul; the Holy Spirit is the Power of the Wind in my sails.  How beautiful.

The memories I have of that summer by the sea are many.  Some of them are great memories, fun memories, and others are things that I could have done differently, better.  But it is okay.  As Faith pointed out, it was a time of growing and maturing for all of us.  Really, is that not the work-of-a-lifetime:  growing and maturing?  Can we ever in this life say, "now I am complete, now I am done."  And yet for Faith, her race is run and she is crowned with the grace that was her due for being who she was without hesitation.  My life is richer for having been her friend.  And now my job is to be that kind of person for the young people in my life.  

To all my friends who wrote me those letters back then and the letters you send me now - thank you for your friendship, your candor, your faith, your sincerity.  Thank you for being "givers" in life - you are the blessings that walk silently beside me as I travel my road, and I am more than grateful for you.

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

Letters to Jen Tilly Lane - Part I.

 

I lived in climate of paradise over 30 years ago.  Most days, I think that leaving Arizona was the biggest mistake I ever made ... but then again, all the nice people I've met since then and dogs I have acquired...  A visitor to my house yesterday (after not seeing me for ten years) summed up my activities as we toured through my house:  "Bik (my nickname), you've raised birds, made wine, raised dogs, and what else ... you've done good!"  I felt a bit of validation.  I am both a goal-setter and an achiever, and as such, any periods of inactivity or nonproductivity make me anxious.  I have to say one of my favorite religious books was The Purpose Driven Life because I suddenly felt that my desire to feel purposeful and creative was validated.  We all need validation.  It doesn't always come when we want it, but it happens when God knows we need it.  I tell you the following stories, changing the names for obvious reasons but for sure and for certain these stories are true.  And true things are worth telling.

In 1981 I bought a wooden crate the size of an end table.  The crate was used to ship my belongings to myself for my freshman year in college.  That wooden crate has been with me in Ohio, Arizona, Massachusetts and New York.  I think it will probably always be with me, even when I am 94 and living in the nephews' garage apartment with a dog and a Siamese fighting fish named Spike.  

For some reason, last week I decided to move The Crate down into the basement.  I thought I knew what was in it:  40 years worth of my journals and my University diplomas and my beautiful green, gold, and black hood from University graduation.  I had hoped some day to use it when I would be receiving my doctorate... but I would have to be in school again to make that happen.  It seems I have been too busy living to get a doctorate.  That, and learning two more languages seems daunting to me at this point.  I digress.  That Crate was beastly heavy so in a swoop of utter genius, I unlocked it and began to unpack the journals and carry armloads of them downstairs.  And then I found a surprise:  a stack of 18 letters from a variety of personal friends, dated 1987-1989 or so, bound together with a red rubber band.  I made time later that evening to read them.

I won't tell you about every single one of them, but I will share lessons learned from revisiting a few of them.  First of all, there were two people I had letters from that I could absolutely not put a face to the name.  That disappointed me because in one of them, a woman poured her heart out to me.  I looked her name up on facebook and then had a shock for myself.  This is the same woman whom I saw at a NY Thruway rest stop a year or two ago.  I walked up to her and said, "I don't know if you remember me, but I was on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje with you in 1988.  I am sorry that I don't remember your name, but I did want to say hello to you."  She was cordial and we went our separate ways.  Fast forward to me reading her letter - and honestly I don't even think we had a conversation with each other when we were on that pilgrimage in the same group so maybe that's why I didn't know how to respond.  Because what exactly is it, I ask you, that you say to a person who tells you in a letter to half-way across the States, that they lost their middle school child due to a hidden health condition, and that their grief was almost unbearable, and that they blamed God?  It was this anger that somehow turned inside her to something that pointed her towards pilgrimage and reclaiming a faith for herself.  I would have been 24 years old when I first read that letter... how could I know, at that age, what to say ... and yet ...

Another letter thanked me profusely for my support and understanding.  It was a friend, probably three years younger than me, who had a crisis pregnancy and had decided to place her child for adoption so that he could have a better life.  I know what I told her then, because I know what I would say now to anyone in that position:  Adoption is always a better choice than abortion, but that doesn't mean it will be an easy or pain-free choice.  Yet it is an unselfish, beautiful, brave step .... a step only a VERY GOOD PARENT could make, putting your child's welfare before your own emotional need.  And this young woman thanked me and blessed me for being one of the few people who "got" why she did what she did... I remember how spiritually compelled I felt to write the letter of support and love to her ... and yet as I mailed it was wondering how it would be received.  I never anticipated how important the letter was to her emotionally - it buoyed her up when others did not support her.  That is what her letter I held in my hands last night told ME.  Within two decades later, she had married a wonderful man and was living a happy life when her own health condition tanked ... and she passed away.  When she placed her baby for adoption, she had no way of knowing that she would not be seeing him graduate from high school even if she had raised him herself ...

And I had no way of knowing that within two years of her letter to me, I would be standing beside a young expectant mother who was about to do the very same thing:  place her son with a family that could give him the start in life that she could not.  This young woman struggled every year around his birthday - one year begging me to drive to the city where he lived to attend church to see if she could catch a glimpse of him.  I did not surmise that we could predict any of our reactions if we did that, and managed to talk her out of it.  Now, approximately 30 years later, she and her husband have raised a wonderful family and her firstborn son reached out to re-connect with her.  He has been received back to the arms of the woman who gave him life, while bringing his generous, faithful adoptive parents into an even bigger circle of love as well.  Oh, the beauty of the road trodden by the brave!  I am so honored to have been part of that story.

Then there were two letters from young women, friends from college, sharing with me that they were engaged.  I am a big fan of marriage - even though I have not yet married (while there is breath, there is a hope) - and I remember two different occasions where people told ME before anyone else that they were getting married, saying, "we just knew how happy you would be for us!"  The two "engagement letters" were quite different from each other.  While they were newsy and friendly to me, the notice of moving toward marriage was a much more stunning piece of the letter.  In Sandy's letter she admitted that while her beau was a faithful, good man - and I know they loved each other - she was "afraid" to get married.  I don't think I ever knew or asked her why she was afraid because that certainly isn't the thing you should be wrestling with while you are saying, "I do."  Perhaps the tremendousness of self-donation for sixty years going forward was on her mind.  The fear of the Great Unknown, as it were.  Or maybe it was the laying down of her arms as a self-sufficient woman of the age that seemed daunting, or maybe it felt like putting a white flag up and losing independence that she couldn't wrap her brain around.  I think it is fair to say that most men of this age have no IDEA what the women's liberation movement did to the female psyche.  While Gloria S and her friends set out to "liberate" women from domineering, chauvinistic stereotypes (where I agree), they also set out to emasculate the other gender and destroy the institution of marriage (ideas I strongly oppose) in order to give women a very distorted freedom, which turned out to be in fact a bondage.  Freedom is always closely linked to the responsibility that comes with it.  You cannot do what you want, when you want if it is going to hurt other people ... or be self-destructive.

The second engagement letter had a mountain inside it.  Jocelyn was marrying a man who had spent time in seminary and figuring out what his next career would be.  He was thinking of becoming a counselor, but practically moving towards a blue-collar job that would more readily support his wife and future family.  While it made sense to us as young adults, her parents were not on board with it.  This is the part of the story where all of us want Roma Downey and Della Reese to appear as two angels and straighten the parents out and show them how young love will eventually mature if we give it light and room to grow.  I guess if I had a daughter, the angels would have to visit me personally to let me agree that any man was good enough, or noble enough, or smart enough to take her for a wife.  So I guess I get that cautious or oppositional spirit of her parents, but I am aware, even though I have not communicated with the couple since those days, that:  a) they did get married; and b) they are still happily married ... and that is what we had all hoped for... without knowing the particulars of how it ironed-out along the way.

I do not know why I answered some of these 18 letters, and did not answer others.  Over time I developed a habit of turning a letter over and writing a date on the back of the envelope that indicated when I responded to them.  I know at least three of the people who sent me letters now have an Eternal Address where the USPS cannot deliver.... which brings me to the 3 Priest Letters.

It sounds like the start of a joke, doesn't it?  There were 3 Priests walking by a river and one of them said .... (You get the idea).  And these three men were completely different from each other - not cookie-cutter in any way.  One of them I never met but his sister and I rented a house together for a while. I know I had written an initial letter to him saying hello, and asking him for prayers ... because that is what hermits do for a living, so I wanted to put him to good use!  He was a member of a religious order that was cloistered away from the world on a cliff somewhere wonderful.  He sent me cartoons, thanked me for the ministry I was doing at the time, talked to me about nothing much, assured me of his prayers that I find a husband, and invited me to visit ... by now I imagine he is in his 70's.  

The second Priest's letter contains a postcard from a beautiful European country which he returned to when he left the States.  When I was in college, he came to teach Theology on our campus for a semester.  There was just one thing that made me feel kind of sorry for him:  we had world-class evangelists and famous people also teaching in that department.  So much so that if you weren't a known conference speaker, it made me wonder, who would take your class?  So I signed up for his class on The Letter of St. Paul to the Romans just to see if he was saying the same thing that my true Theology Saint (Fr. Francis Martin) was teaching. He was an unusual person with a European haircut, either that, or he cut his own bangs with a bowl on his head like the mothers in the depression did for their kids.  And he asked me after class if I would save a dance for him at the student mixer that night.  I was surprised.  I didn't know priests were "allowed" to dance.  I also think I kind of had a crush on him.  So here was this letter telling me of his life in Europe (1989) hand-scrawled on a piece of paper 3inches by 3 inches with a photocopied note on the other side to other friends.  And that is pretty much all there is to say about that.  We all have a cache of friends we reach out to and we hope they are glad to hear we are alive & well, and have taken up skiing on the Swiss Alps and have a very nice prayer community to which we belong.  And for a brief moment, I was part of the cache... and it seems I didn't respond to that letter either. 

The third Priest's letter was again mostly about ministry (because that is what I was doing for a living) and very kind.  His story bears a bit more telling though.  He was one of those evangelists I mentioned above, teaching at University.  And he was known throughout the world for being fantastic with young people.  He wrote books, gave conferences, held healing services.  He was all-that-and-a-bag-of-chips.  But the one thing I related to about him that I guess I never realized to this day is that he had scars on his face.  Growing up, I had scars left behind by the chicken pox, and subconsciously I think I related to this person.  I knew what it felt like to be trying to make something of your life, but feeling like I could never forget being called "moon face" and "crater face" in Junior High.  And while I hated - truly - my own junior high experience and never wanted to work with teens in a million years, I can tell you that my favorite and best jobs were the ones where I worked with teens, particularly the junior high crowd... because they loved me.  What I thought would be horrible, ended up being a very healing experience.  At the first parish where I worked, I had kids that would buzz around me like bees around a very sweet flower.  I just remember loving them from my heart and they loved me right back.  And somehow over the years, most of the scars on my face have faded.  I still struggle with the ones inside my heart, as most of us do, so I never quite forget how it feels to be imperfect, and that's just how life is.

So this priest told us he was retiring to the mountains to live a life of prayer and penance.  He had years ago been a counselor - probably a psychologist - and then he became a university professor, and then just as I began my ministry career, he was wrapping up his.  I reached out to him to come give a presentation at a school where I was teaching.  He came and brought a deacon to travel with him, and very graciously went out to dinner with a group of teens  and adults later.  It was a stellar day and then a few years later I started to understand what else had happened in his life.  

I remember the day in Pastoral Guidance class where he referenced the then-popular movie Prince of Tides.  He bellowed across the classroom - just to be sure we didn't miss his point - "Do not EVER think you are doing a client a favor by sleeping with them!  It is against the very heart of not just Christian teaching but ethical counseling practices."  It struck me as an odd outburst.  I don't even know if it had anything to do with what we were talking about in class that day.  But he made a strong point.

Fast forward to almost two decades later, and the Bishop of his home diocese made a sweeping case to lift the statute of limitations on clergy accusations to a broader band of time.  And all of a sudden I realize why my ministry hero, my friend, my teacher is no longer in a parish, school, or conference agenda.  What I choose to believe about that is this:  perhaps when he was younger he made the Prince of Tides mistake, and it caught up with him.  That would also explain his loud declaration in class that day.  I don't think his situation was anything other than that, but those kind of mistakes got swept into the Zero Tolerance Zone established by the USCCB.  Whereas, I am not the picture of Compassion when I hear about child molesters and I tend to get very, very outspoken about the importance of victims' rights to see their assailants convicted and jailed,  I also believe that every man is, proverbially, "due his day in court."  The legal system of our country rests on the concept of "Innocent until proven guilty."  Our Media - which exists only to promote itself, not to propel unbiased truth - has twisted that to "Guilty until proven Innocent," because that is what sells news.  That is also why I only buy newspapers to line my bird cages with.

My fallen hero has since been laid to rest beneath the green carpet of grass.  This year, I learned that he passed away six years ago - without fanfare.  I think about the countless people he has helped spiritually - and there have been many.  I remember the days when he would call up to the phone in the hallway of my dormitory (and the others on campus as well; before we had cell phones) and I would answer it and he would say, "This is Father So-and-So, I am sending pizza up to you all - can you see to it that it is fairly distributed?"  Yes.  Was this kindness or atonement for sins of a past life?  Maybe.  Life is complicated.  Somehow in our human hearts, even the greatest of generosities of a repentant heart can never quite seem to equal one serious evil act.  And I know if he was alive, and I actually was talking this through with him, he would immediately point out what we both believe to be true:  The one act of an innocent man dying on a cross for a world of sinners was enough expiation in the eyes of God who is Father of all.  In the end, we have to trust that God is going to sort it out more justly, and in other cases, more mercifully than any of us could.  I'm hanging my hat on that.

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

  

The Sound of .... Vermont 2021

 

It appears there are more mountains than people in Vermont.  Other than a nearby traveler who hums, taps, talks to self, sings, etc., Vermont is quiet.  I mean really quiet.  There are people here, I presume, because I see parked cars at the condo.  But there are no voices.  Screen doors closed, and solid doors open, but no kind of noise.  Even the mosquitoes turned off their engines... and word has it they are considered the Vermont state bird.  People can't possibly be working from home at the condos where we stay because the Internet keeps going on the blink.  We ran into people at the pool the other night and tried to make conversation with them, and the father and his kid just turned their backs to us and swam to the other end of the pool.  Bizarre.

The other thing about Vermont is they are, apparently, "saving trees" one cash register receipt at a time.  Frankly, if I don't write down my expenses on the corner of something quickly while the "amount spent" is still in my short term memory bank, my register is going to be an ever-loving disaster.  And, strange surprise, you can't do coin parking meters or coin laundry machines here.  They only accept "plastic."  (How can you open an app when Wi-Fi is still out?)  If my parents were to vacation here, they'd go home with dirty laundry because they don't "do plastic."  So in the end, a whole generation of people who believe in paying cash for service and are old enough to not work and vacation anywhere they want, won't do it HERE if they have to pay laundry and parking meters with plastic.  I'm chalking this one up to another millennial idea to make things faster and jettison human jobs (ie. meter maids).

Oh, Stuff it

Yesterday we went to a place where you can make your own stuffed animals (the company shall remain nameless herein).  I could not find anything of an average size below $40.  I could have bought a $25 critter made of dense, knobby material - not soft and silky like the others - and They would donate one of the same to an emergency responder station for children in distress.  A nice thought.  But in the end both the kid and the buyer would not have a silky bear but a knobby one.  Something not right, but I can't quite put my finger on it.  Are they just trying to "move" knobby bears at a cut-rate?  If they donated them ALL couldn't they just grab a tax deduction for charitable purposes - or does Vermont not work like that?

And speaking of fingers... remember the strange photo of the grinning politician wearing mittens?  (And it's so much harder to do business and "move money" with mittens on, isn't it - so maybe this slows down crime?)  The stuffed animal store had a huge display of like-mittens for sale, perhaps, better to say "for purchase" since the word "sale" implies a bargain.  $50 for awkward granny mittens?!  Are you people out of your minds?!?

The Love Language of  ... FedEx

Ah - signs of life - big foot is stomping up the condo stairs - perhaps Sasquatch vacations here?  Then the delivery man booms-out the name of his company and makes someone's day.  I heard a woman say, "Oh, they've arrived!"  If you've read Chapman's book The Five Love Languages, I am a solid score on "receiving gifts" - so all that to say when the FedEx guy came to deliver furnace filters at my house the other day, I got so happy I almost hugged him.  No matter that I purchased them for myself.  I think he should yell, "INCOMING!"  when he comes up my driveway.  I get so excited.  I would've made a great mommy to a child inclined to bring me a handful of wilting dandelions.  I know I would exclaim with joy:  "Posies?!  For me?!  So beautiful!"  and the child would beam and run off to catch salamanders for me and put them in an empty mayonnaise jar with twigs and grass cuttings.  

"Writers Write" (Ann Landers)

My travelmates don't think I can hear them as I sit on the porch.  They are talking about journaling - and who does it (me), and they don't.  People who don't write need something else like smoking or sudoku or crosswords - because if I don't write my head will explode.  As I see and experience things, this is the way I process and share the percolations in my head.

It is breezy and cool today - September first - this patio is great.  I saw sunrise over the mountains this morning - wow - that one moment with the ball of fire blazing in the sky was so moving.  Then I went back to bed.  I can stand only so much raw inspiration. 

The Men of Vermont                                               

The Grand Silence of Vermont was broken by Rick the bookstore guy.  I think I found a book to buy because I felt sorry for him.  He was awkwardly masked, somewhere behind the counter surrounded by a tidal wave of tenuously perched books.  Any attempt to organize his store at this point would be akin to shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.  the shelves were a disaster of epic proportions.  Adrian Monk (the television detective who I plan to marry) would've gone right into a panic attack at the sight of this store.

Sometimes people just talk to me for no reason.  My mother has encouraged me to listen more and talk less, to draw other people out.  This has mostly turned out to be bad advice.  First, because I am bad at it.  I find myself interesting and funny and firmly believe everyone else should too (tongue-in-cheek).  Second, and more to the point, people tell me stuff I don't need to know.

For instance: the bookstore guy.  He told me about someone who returns gifts that he gives them (We can all feel that angst, I agree.)  I pointed out to him that perhaps the worst part of that is when we give, we give a piece of our own thoughtfulness, and when that is rejected it hurts our hearts.  In effect, it rejects not just the gift, but the giver - I don't need this, is translated to our psyche as, "You have nothing to offer me."

Then he switched to talking about moving from living with roommates to having your own place.  (He was in his early 60's so I don't know why this topic rose up)  I merely commented how happy I am - when I recall some of my roommate situations - that I now live with three dogs instead of people.

He took that comment to a whole other level and said a psychologist friend told him dogs give to us emotionally and perhaps even biophysically.  Huh?  To the point:  by bringing dirt into our homes dogs  build up our immune system by exposing us to other germs for which we subsequently develop antibodies.  Irony:  he was wearing mask when he said this, and  the sign on his door insisted that me and everyone else who entered, vaccinated or not, had to be masked.  These types of people drive me crazy.  They need to decide whether or not they even truly believe in the vaccine they want to mandate.  I looked at him and said something relative to:  I have a hard time getting excited about dog shit being tracked into my house.  He was quick to assure me he was only referencing dirt.  I tried to stammer my way toward wrapping up this odd conversational-free-association-experience.

I was also still mentally boxing-up his comments about food pantries needing to broaden their stock to include women's feminine supplies and how glad he was that we lifted (did we?  who is "we"?) the taboo of speaking about such things in public so now we can really help people with what they "need."  And, honestly, for all points of the conversation we had, I will always think of this man as the stereotypical Vermont Man Type 1.  I couldn't see behind the counter but I bet you five dollars he was wearing Birkenstocks... possibly with socks on.

Vermont Man Type 2's persona would be captured by the guy running a gift shop we stopped by on our way home.  I walked into the roadside shop and immediately began trying to mentally identify a funky smell.  Not exactly a maryjane smell.  Not cigarettes.  Perhaps outdated balsam potpourri?  But funky nonetheless.  And as he sat behind his counter writing - he said - stock identifiers on  a piece of paper (as in "Stocks & Bonds") he somehow told us he just sold a house online... in 8 hours ... for $795,000 .... yes 3 zeroes.  I assure you if I just made THAT kind of sale I would not be sitting in a run-down gift shop selling maple candies and garden banners to middle-aged fat women fleeing the state.

To look at the guy,  I would really expect he'd be playing Jimmy Buffet songs on the store radio. Tee shirt, wavy dark brown hair, middle-aged but strong looking and yet laughed a lot.  But he just sat there in the quiet scribbling numbers, talking to himself.  I presume he was wearing flip-flops, not Birkenstocks.  I also didn't get the impression he voted for Bernie.  He was too unapologetic about his financial success.  Five bucks says he was born in another state and moved to Vermont.

Vermont Man Type 3 is captured by the painter Norman Rockwell.  He is the subject of the "Freedom of Speech" painting in the series on The Four Freedoms.  Rockwell, I have been told, puts a trick in each of his paintings - as a result, in order to find this detail, you find yourself pulled in to make you study it more. The Vermont man exercising his Freedom of Speech at a townhall meeting is wearing a plaid flannel jacket.  It has buttons; his shirt has a zipper.  That's the trick.  But it is also the job of a good artist to show you, the viewer, that we have subtle expectations of the things of life - like our clothes - and those can be adjusted without doing damage to the overall picture.  I love Rockwell for his ordinary yet exquisite portrayal of American life.  Actually, the guy in the painting reminds me of what my friend's dad would have looked like when he was younger... and I imagine in his life he has gotten plenty of use of his freedom of speech.  

Vermont - is it open for business?

Vermont is only really open from Thursday to Sunday.  Our travel group wanted to try the Flatbread Restaurant that other people raved about in the condo guest book.  It had a sign:  "Open Thurs- Sun."  This was not only a let-down but a point of annoyance because none of our vacation stay overlapped with their "open" hours.  And I don't  think it was a public health reason that kept them closed.  I think they just don't feel like working Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday, so they don't.  I always thought half the charm of running a small business was meeting people and, for that, you have to have an "Open/Aiberto/Bienvenu" sign... instead of Open Thurs --> Sun.  Just sayin'.

The Snake at Hildene

Hildene is a fabulous estate with an amazing garden area built by Robert Lincoln, who is related to - yes - Honest Abe.  Their gift shop (which he probably did not build) had the coolest puzzles and I may have found a new hobby... because I need one more thing to do...   

The furniture at Hildene looked quite uncomfortable, which in my humble opinion, is a sign of a true antique.  Bureaus had lots of drawers and are stained very dark and not too nice.  It'd take three strong men and a draft horse to move the sideboard in the Lincoln's dining room.

On our way through the woods to look at the Pullman car (train travel for the rich & famous), one of the travelers looked forward on the gravel drive and said, "ugh.  snake."  And for those of you inclined to ask, "was it a gardener snake?"  I give my standard reply:  "I don't care WHAT he does for a living."  Ghastly.  As I picked up my pace and kept my eyes peeled for his relatives, I no longer was enjoying walking the road.  I was also keeping an eye on the dark clouds moving in which were perhaps related to the tropical storm moving inland up the New England coast.  I was now breathing like a person who is either pre-asthmatic or quite out of shape.  But I got even.  On the way of driving out of the Hildene estate my tires ran over something bump-bump, bump-bump.

Pleasant Distractions

I think about two things a lot lately:  dying and dating.  Not because I am likely to do either of them any time soon, but just because I have a lot of material to consider on each.  However, I do not think about dying when I am eating ice cream; nor do I need to be on a date to eat ice cream, so I am glad to report that I enjoyed my frozen favorite almost every day on vacation.  I've cut myself down to a single scoop so I feel less remorse:  when I get on the scale at home I can blame the # on something else.  

Return to Dogland

This morning I dreamt I was living in my apartment in the city again.  In the dream I was calling my dogs and they weren't to be seen.  One came, I knew it was Madeline.  In my sleep I called, screamed, actually, panic-stricken, for my Valor and my Sophia.  They were nowhere to be found.  I woke up and realized I was home in my own bed, Madeline was nearby and I could hear Valor and Sophia in their respective kennels in the living room waiting for me to be awake and let them out to get this day going.  Maybe they were really the ones dreaming of me when I was on vacation in Vermont, wondering why I did not come immediately when they called for me.  Nonetheless, here I am, and here they are, and all is right with my world now.

                                                                          ###

                                            

An Open Letter to the Cantor - Better Than a Hallelujah ...

 

Dear Mr. Cantor ~

I wanted to say Thank you for singing Amy Grant’s “Better than a Hallelujah, Sometimes” last week.  I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind all week…. Which is a good thing.  I am hoping that within this letter I can share some thoughts with you on music ministry that I hope you will appreciate.  I am old enough, I think, to be your mother (Amy Grant is only a hair older than me – I grew up with her music as a teen).  I had been in music ministry for almost 40 years I think.  Retreats. Teen Masses.  Evenings of renewal.  Confirmation. Weddings.  Funerals. 

I stopped almost 6 years ago when the guy leading the group I was with put me on a limb to sing a song I thought was too high for me (because it was) and then when we finished Mass he told me that it was terrible and basically insisted I quit. Wow.  Yeah, people do this in church.  What he really disliked about me, I think, is like Amy’s song, I “get it” that it’s not about the Perfect Choir.  Worship is NEVER about performance unless you are doing it for the Audience of One.  (look up at the ceiling here, yeah, Him).  I’ve seen people do confirmation music that was completely irrelevant to teenagers … only because it made them (the Choir) look good in front of a bishop.  But it aint about him, it’s about Jesus, and connecting kids to HIM in their language.  There’s always a strange shadow that is called Ego that floats into churches and hangs around the choir loft.  Until we sing from a different place within ourselves he will keep whispering our name and distracting us from what we are really capable of.

I want to tell you something that I don’t often talk about – it is my gift to you – hold onto it.  Use it as you develop your natural talent and truly love the music you sing.  Don’t sing it for the money (we both know that isn’t much) sing it for what happens in your soul and what you are able to emanate to the people around you.  Years ago, I sang for a season with a group in Camillus that had a couple of ASCAP musicians in it.  One of them did a very simple duet with me.  Later, she said to the Music Director that singing with me was like Emmaus…. If no one ever says a good word about me again, I will just keep that one in my heart forever.  You know, Emmaus, where the two disciples walked with a stranger that turned out to be Jesus in disguise.  Do that, Mr. Cantor, BECOME EMMAUS for the people you sing with….

 There is one song I will probably never sing in front of a microphone:  “America, the Beautiful.”  You know why?  Because when I get to verse 2, oh beautiful, for pilgrim feet, whose stern impassioned stress a thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness, I cry.  Not sometimes.  Every single time.  Because I can see them, their faces, the cold New England wind I grew up with, blowing at them.  They suffered for a purpose, so that you and I can stand here free…. And sing…. And it makes me grateful, and makes me cry…. (which then makes it difficult to sing).

Last week I saw on Facebook a post from one of the young women I taught in high school.  She had grown up, gotten married, has two sons in elementary and middle school and became an incredible woman of faith.  Her post was … her young husband’s tombstone:  Lieutenant Johnson… (“the soldier’s pleas not to let him die, better than a hallelujah some time”).  Sing for her, “Better than a Hallelujah,” that she feel peace.

I am not a registered parishioner at St. X’s, or anywhere, I just go where I feel led.  But I know people at St. X’s…. I know some of their hurts and pains …. And that song can really minister to them …. Better than a Hallelujah.  So next time you sing it – and I hope you do it soon – look at the man in the 22^nd row who hopes he can stay sober Today, the woman sitting not far away who almost got married but her beau died, the couple sitting next to me that wonders why they just can’t seem to have a baby.  And when you sing that song, with tenderness in your voice, tell them that God loves them in all that brokenness ~ just as they are ~ and it makes His day to hear their needs brought to Him.  Take that music outside those horizontal lines on the page and just speak-sing it to them.  Give them Emmaus.  That is what ministry is:  Emmaus.

Revisiting Sensitivity

 

So, let’s talk about sensitivity… cultural and personal.

I see no reason for us to question all things obvious about me.  But I do have some pet peeves.  It’s just that MY pet peeves won’t get any kind of national attention.  In fact, if you ask the people who peeve me (and they shall remain nameless for the sake of respect) they will say I am being ridiculous.  And you can take THAT prediction to the bank…. Because it will be true on a whole bunch of levels.  I am going to be intentionally ridiculous.  I am going to be sincere and, consequently, accidentally ridiculous.  I am going to rant and rave.  And I will leave it up to you to decide which is which and if it deserves any kind of national attention, crashing of statutes or burning of buildings.  In the end, I hope you see it for what it is:  an attempt at entertainment.

I have been doing a lot of ruminating (think cows and multiple stomachs and you get the idea of thoroughness and duration… and what it comes out as in the end might be the same?!).  I’ve been thinking about what I wanted to do with my life back when I cared more and head been kicked in the head less.  I am looking at relationships I had with people I worked for or with and I wish I had done a few things differently IF they were going to do exactly the same thing they did…

Occasion #1.

I lived in Paradise for six years.  Then I had to go to Purgatory for an extended stay.  At first, I didn’t realize it was no longer heaven – it was sunny and pleasant initially… then I had to get a job to support the base lifestyle to which I wanted to be accustomed.  But my new boss, when he hired me, said something I will never forget if I live to be 400 years old:  “I offered this job to a man, but he decided to move to New Mexico, so I guess I am asking you to come work with us.”  I was SO EXCITED that I got offered a job that would forever change my outlook and life direction that I didn’t even KNOW that I should have been offended and called Headquarters that he committed a grievous gender-based slam to my face.  Or I could have just told him where HE could go … but it wasn’t in me back then to say that.  Now I probably would.  Plus, I wanted the job.

It’s not that I am thick-skinned.  It is that I am at times an airhead and miss direct hits as they are intended.  So, he got away with that.  And two years later, when he was reassigned to another post with people he thought he might like more than our “suburbials” (as Jimmy Walker coined the term), the new guy who took the post was the exact opposite.  I was upset by something and went in to talk to the new boss.  As you can imagine, it took me by complete surprise that he ran around his desk and swooped me into his arms to “console” me … and that creeped me out (as well it should, I would find out years later.   He no longer has that kind of a job anymore.)  To quote my friend Raelynn:  “Trust your gut.  If it FEELS weird, it IS weird.”   I only wish I could give every young woman in the universe that advice.

Occasion #2

In my field of work, back then in that part of the country, it was customary to call ALL adults by their first name unless, of course, they were titled people like politicians, priests and principals.  Even the teenagers called us by our first names – and that was fine because it gives sort of an extended illusion that you have imbibed from the Fountain of Youth.  All are your peers.  All is friendly.  All is well.  Kumbya, kum-bay-ahhhhh…

And then I moved to the frozen tundra for a few decades.  Cold climate.  Cold people.  Cold harsh reality everywhere you turn.  Any efforts in my field of work were easily 25 years behind-the-times, consequently there were no full-time jobs in exactly my line of work.  I did things that were “close enough” for less money than you can imagine.  And They practice a totally self-serving maneuver of giving tiny little, if any, raise based on extra things they load onto your job title.  If you have the mental image of a donkey, loaded down and stumbling along the cliffside path of the Grand Canyon, you are in the right field of dreams.

 My new boss was a Title + Surname person.  He insisted I be called by “Miss + Surname.”  He felt that it set up a culture of respect.  (No thanks, I can EARN my respect in my field.)   Here’s why his method makes me bristle:

Mis-take (something you screw up).  Mis-appropriate (something that puts a person in jail). Mis-givings (Bad feelings based in intuition).  Mis-cellaneous (something no one needs).  Mis-understanding (when things go awry personally).  Mis-informed (when incorrect information is put forth).  To miss-the mark (ineptitude).  Really the only Mis I can think of that I like is “mistletoe.”  And even then, like buying property, it’s only good if you’re in the right location.  Given all the negatives that are attached to “MISS” I think THAT is quite a burden to attach to my persona and my last name.

                               

Occasion #3. 

A village to the north of my state is named after a famous Polish general that my family-of-origin deeply respects.  Wikipedia lists him as follows:  “Kazimierz Michał Władysław Wiktor Pułaski of Ślepowron was a Polish nobleman, soldier and military commander who has been called, together with his counterpart Michael Kovats de Fabriczy, "the father of the American cavalry."   He is Polish, and he is military and he helped America.  Really, the guy didn’t need to be or do much more to be a folk-hero in the eyes of my people.  And his last name seems kind of simple.  And yet the rednecks up here pronounce it:  “pool-ask-eye” or maybe more like “pull-ass-k-eye.”  When I actually told my family that, two of the men almost needed cardiac attention.  They began yelling:  “what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-them??!!!!  The man gave his LIFE for this country and they can’t even pronounce his name!!!”  (Pull-ahs-kee).  Do you know why a lot of Polish names end in “ski” – because we can’t all spell toboggan. 

Have my people torn down anyone else’s statues because we are offended?  No.  We accept the reality that many nations, many levels of intelligence, and many levels of class are co-existing here.  We do not have an axe to grind.  We go to work, we fall in love, we raise our families and life goes on.  This is, in some part, why when the European immigrants came to this country, they lived in communities together.  It was to keep parts of their culture alive as they began to assimilate into the bigger picture of America.  Language, customs, religious practices, values – all these things survive longer within the broader embrace of a community.

A tip of the hat at this point to the Greeks.  For all the literature and culture that the Greeks have to their credit I want to say again that there is one Greek custom they should re-iterate to their kids.  I was at my friend’s funeral Mass.  She had died, truly, before her Time, in midlife … another victim of the “C” word.  No, not this one of 2021 – the real C-word:  “Cancer.” 

I sat in the back of the Greek church – at times with my eyes closed just breathing in the incense and the palpable holiness of the place; then I’d re-open and study the hagiography (holy pictures of saints).  I know some basic Greek and was able to decipher a few of the captions around pictures – names and phrases.  And then the priest stood behind the casket, but facing the congregation, and he LIFTED THE LID OF THE CASKET.  Holy smokes!  What was he doing?!?  From somewhere behind him on a small table he took a small piece of cake on a plate (no it wasn’t communion) and put it INSIDE the casket!  And I thought to myself, good-gracious, I have found “my people”  - any Church that buries you with cake for the Journey is a truly Great Church.  He closed the lid and began to chant:  Hagios ‘o Theos …. Hagios o’Thanatos… Eleison … ‘emas.   (Holy God, Holy Un-dying One, Have mercy on us.  Amen.)  All I can say is I hope to marry a Greek man some day so I can be buried from their Church….

Wow.  Cake.  They send you out with a piece of cake.  I did “corner” one of the little ladies for the back-story at the funeral luncheon when I saw the entire sheet cake sitting on the counter with one very obvious wedge missing …. Apparently, they call it “resurrection” cake because it is made of wheat (and berries) reflecting the words of Jesus, “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat …”

It is for this reason I reiterate the importance of being open to cultures and more than one way of doing things.  We all bring something cool to the table.  Let us live in peace and openness.  And let us end with cake.

Occasion #4.

It is not for lack of a hair dresser that my hair is long and a better color than it used to be.  It is not one more of the inane things people can blame on COVID.   We just made it through a national pandemic and the vanity of Americans is more obvious than ever before.  People were bitching about wearing a small blue mask – which in the scope of inconveniences is really NO BIG DEAL – while others were getting seriously ill and being carted off to the hospital.  Avoiding the polarization of politics – the only point I am making is the importance of identifying molehills and mountains and not confusing them with each other…. An art which we aren’t even CLOSE to mastering. 

Decades ago, someone once said to me:  “I think women over 40 with long hair look ridiculous.”  It was a woman who said that.  It stuck with me as a sweeping generalization upon which I intended to put the proverbial “kibosh.”  So here I am very well past 40 and my hair is going the direction God intended it to go …. Long …. And I am loving it.  I am giving Crystal Gayle no competition yet at this point (youngsters:  you have to look her up.)  Perhaps I am growing my hair for the same reason Phil Robertson & the Dynasty men grow beards: because we can.  But my reason for coloring is different.

I cannot count on only one hand the number of hair dressers I have asked to change my color one way or the other and they argued with me.  This has been all my life.  One wouldn’t let me go lighter; the other wouldn’t let me go darker, etc. ... all the while I hold my checkbook at the ready to enforce the point of what I want.  They end up doing it the exact color or style that they wanted and it’s MY hair!   At this juncture in my personal history I want to stand up and definitively say: “If one of my clients can dye her hair yellow-blonde with fuschia highlights and wonder why people at the synagogue were staring at her:  GET OFF MY BACK TURKEYS!  It is, in the end, MY HAIR.  And all I asked was to go up or down a shade – not dye the American flag into my head.”  There.  I said it.  Now hand me my box of magic Fountain of Youth coloring and have a nice day.  It cost me $75 to fight with them but $10 to have it my way…. You do the math.

So, we have here four examples:  a gender offense, a vocational offense, a cultural offense and a personal offense.  In the end all I can offer you in all seriousness is that:  being offended can only become a way of life if you let it.  I think of two expressions told to me in my lifetime: “If you look for a reason to be offended you can always find one” and “Let go; let God.”  The latter has much to be said for it; as a Life Philosophy even though it’s merely 4 words it covers a lot of territory; I’ve been surprised by that. 

It is remarkable that forgiveness is so much more difficult and makes you so much stronger personally than any amount of push-back and “getting even” could conjure up.  So I submit to you a favorite in my collection of Life Adages:  “Don’t be a bitter person; be a better person.”

 

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*Post-script: the opinions above are not meant to excuse anyone’s bad behavior/manners, etc., nor are they intended to deny the importance of legal and ethical means of securing the life, liberty and happiness each person is entitled to by the Constitution.  Taxes and DMV fees may apply.  See your local dealer for term limits and exclusions which may also apply.  You have a right to an attorney.  Anything you say can and will be held against you in the court of law.  From sea to shining sea with the purple mountains’ majesty not excluded.  (you get my point – we have to Mirandize everything we say with exclusions).  Good night and good news.  Amen.

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Nuchem and the "damn evil people"

 

“Damn evil people …” he scowls.  

Nuchem, the favorite character I love to detest on the series 
“Shtisel” says this phrase routinely.  He usually is referencing the Zionists, or the Gentiles, or anyone who crosses him:  “Damn evil people.”  In his own esteem, he is a blameless orthodox Jew who only cuts the corners he feels he is entitled to cut… We all know how that is.  We’d like to hold all others to the highest of standards – Biblical and otherwise – but for ourselves, ah, “mercy, mercy!”

Perhaps it is because of people like Nuchem – and every religion and group of people has them – Jesus taught His followers to pray to G-D in heaven, “and forgive us, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  Impossible, right?  This is why we pray it, and don’t declare that we’ve accomplished it already.  Because if we were already forgiving that perfectly then we’d be … oh, probably dead, because dead people are the only ones who have completely let go.  And even then, I would make a case for the tormented souls who come back to haunt houses or pester those that wronged them.  Even in death, perhaps there are some that cannot let go.

My friend Mary’s saintly mother always used to say to us: “Let go, and Let God” and she’d smile at us.  Perhaps she knew how that saying tormented us, each being Type-A personalities.  We like justice.  We like peace and order.  And I think we each secretly suspect that “if everyone would just do what I say I wouldn’t have to be so bossy!”  (I have a picture that says that in my house.  In the photo, I am four years old in my little pinafore dress, pointing my finger at the camera, mouth wide open.)  “If everyone would just do what I say, I wouldn’t have to be so bossy!” 

I think of Nuchem and his “damn evil people” grumblings when I clean the litter box.  Here’s why.  When I was growing up – back when dinosaurs roamed the earth freely – we used paper bags for groceries.  Then someone decided we were killing too many trees with making our paper bags.  So, they put the social pressure out and paper bags all but vanished.  In their place came wispy plastic bags.  And this is where the old adage “history repeats itself” comes into play.  Happily, we used plastic bags. 

The new set of “damn evil people” began patronizing us referring to them as “single-use-bags.”  I almost attacked the last person who said that to me.  They ARE ABSOLUTELY NOT SINGLE-USE BAGS!  In fact, at one point I had so many of these multi-use bags at my house (tucked handily into …. One big bag) it’d require a dump truck to clean them out if I decided to, well, die or something.  I re-used them for moving casseroles to friends’ houses if I thought the food would spill.  I threw sneakers in them and tossed them into my vehicle in case I needed sneakers in an emergency.  (What kind of emergency requires sneakers, I do not know.  Probably situations where flip-flops break or shoes get wet.)  The multi-use list goes on and on, but my all-time-favorite use for those bags was to clean up after the amazing cat that loads the litterbox like four or five times a day. 

So, the single-use bags were definitely NOT single-use for me…. And now They are demonizing my plastic bags.  One guy said to me:  “use paper bags.”  Clearly, we stopped caring about trees.  Clearly, he has never cleaned a cat box.  Clearly, he has bought the damn evil lie.

Another moment of educating The Millenials:  this is NOT about saving sea turtles.  The U.S. wasn’t dumping OUR plastic bags.  Your mother, your grandmother and I have all been re-using them.  It was some ignorant – and I say that in Christian charity (what’s left of mine) – foreign country that was just dumping their landfill into the ocean.  THE PEOPLE are the problem.  Not the turtles.  Not the bags.  IT’S THE PEOPLE. 

And, not only is this NOT about saving turtles.  It is about money.  Because – guess what – I now have to BUY specially produced, recycled …. Plastic bags with handles you can tie in order to scoop out the litterbox 4 times a day.  Thicker bags, one use, and I now get to pay for it.

Damn evil people.

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