Rick On This 'n' That

Judgment

2011-11-20T08:47:00.000-08:00

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.³²All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,³³and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.³⁴Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;³⁵for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,³⁶I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’³⁷Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?³⁸And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?³⁹And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’⁴⁰And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’⁴¹Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;⁴²for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,⁴³I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’⁴⁴Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’⁴⁵Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’⁴⁶And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Any questions?

Evil III

2011-11-19T20:00:00.000-08:00

Part 3.

I met another person who would have been considered a personification of evil by many: John Wayne Gacy.

Gacy lived from about 1964 to 1968 in Waterloo, Iowa. A face people saw was that of a pleasant, hard-working, affable fellow, a man whose in-laws owned a group of Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises. Gacy worked at one of them, and showed promise as one who could own franchises himself one day. But, there was always the dark cloud. Toward the end of his time in Waterloo word had begun to spread that Gacy had unconventional sexual preferences. He had made passes at some of the adolescent boys that worked for him. In the spring of 1968 he was convicted of brutally raping a teenage boy. The sentence was ten years, but he was paroled in 1970, and he returned to his birthplace, Chicago. A few months after he arrived in Chicago he and his family purchased a house: a two-bedroom ranch with a crawl space. It was just outside the Chicago city limits.

By 1972 visitors to Gacy's home noticed a terrible odor. Gacy explained the odor as being from moisture accumulating in the crawl space.

No, that wasn't it.

Through 1976 - 1977 - 1978 young men disappeared, and the authorities could not pick up any trail for them. Police eventually focused on Gacy's house because the mother of the last victim remembered the construction firm at which her son had applied for work. They went to his home for the first time on December 13, 1978. They found several items that had belonged to the victims. They noticed that horrible odor. They looked in the crawl space, and found nothing. In a subsequent visit investigators noticed, in the crawl space, a mound of dirt. They dug, and found human remains. That same evening the Cook County Medical Examiner was called to the home. He recognized the stench immediately. It was the smell of death. By the end of the month 27 bodies had been found buried under the crawl space. There were others - two in the concrete of Gacy's patio, two in the Illinois River, one buried under Gacy's rec room. Poor fellow had run out of room in the crawl space, I guess.

Thirty-three in all.

I saw John Wayne Gacy briefly after he was tried, convicted and sentenced to death. I was a correctional officer at the Joliet Correctional Center. I was on the tactical unit, and was taking some training in Springfield. Death Row was at the Menard Correctional Center in Chester, Illinois, just down the river from St. Louis. We toured death row. Gacy was helping with some painting, so he wasn't quite as locked down as the other inmates.

I've met three famous people in my life, and two of them were serial killers. About those people I hang out with. . .

What convinced Arthur Gary Bishop and John Wayne Gacy that other people saw themselves as things to gratify Gacy/Bishop? What persuaded them that other people don't want to live? Or, what made that idea such a matter of indifference to them?

In the prior blog posts we addressed the idea of societal pressures, and maybe that partly explains the Nazi phenomenon. But, let's not forget that those who worked at the camps made a choice to do so. Even if they made the choice with a pistol pointed at their heads, they still made a choice.

We talked a bit about evil personified - Satan, the devil, etc. But, like societal pressure, this being, even if you accept his existence, can't force you to do something that isn't in your nature to do. Notice how much luck Satan didn't have with Job and Jesus.

What, then?

A couple of thoughts.

When forensic psychologists talk about serial killers, they talk about murder as giving these people a high. Once a killer has killed, it gives him a high that nothing else can match. It sounds almost like addiction. One prism useful to folks who work with addiction is to categorize addictions into substance addictions and process addictions. Substance addictions are the better known: addiction to alcohol, crack, tobacco, meth, and others. Process addictions are addictions to things you do, rather than things you use. To use an example, as good as exercise is as a habit, it is bad if it turns into an addiction.

For Gacy and Bishop, could murder have been the ultimate process addiction?

Gerald May, a noted author on the subject of addiction, published a book entitled Addiction and Grace. His position is that the opposite of addiction is grace. If you absent grace from your life, some form of addiction is inevitable. I think May is worth paying attention to, although I'm not on board with all he has to say.

I think this note is long enough, but I do want to follow up another time with a concept that I think may be the most relevant to discussion of evil and its origins: C.G. Jung and the concept of the shadow personality.

Thanks for hanging out. As always, I'd love your thoughts.

Evil II

2011-11-11T18:52:00.000-08:00

It has been common to attribute evil to some supernatural force. In the western monotheist religions we envision a personification of radical evil. Satan, the devil, Beelzebub, Lucifer. This being is referred to in the Hebrew Scriptures as well as by Jesus, so if pressed about the existence of a devil, my response will be something like, "If it'll make you happy to have me affirm that, I will. But, we do have bigger and better fish to fry, no?" I happen to think there's plenty in human nature to create the evil we see.

From the Chicago Tribune, October 28, 2011:

Miguel Renteria broke a knife in the chest of his 18-year-old daughter during a struggle in his Skokie apartment this week, then pushed his elbow into her throat until she stopped moving. . .Renteria's crying 2-year-old granddaughter hit him with a toy, and Renteria stabbed the toddler 10 times in the abdomen with another knife. . ."While the knife was in her little heart, he made the sign of the cross."

The devil shows up in The Book of Genesis, in the Garden of Eden. The devil is a central character in the opening chapters of The Book of Job. I find it interesting that, in the original Hebrew in Job, the definite article is used: not Satan, but THE satan - the tempter. Satan as prosecuting attorney. That theme - Satan as prosecutor - is the dominant theme when Jesus speaks of Satan. When Satan directly tempts Jesus - let these stones become bread, throw yourself down from the parapet of the temple, you can have all the kingdoms of the world - it is, in part, a means by which we see the stuff of which Jesus was made.

A second theme that emerges is that Satan's temptations inevitably fail if the temptation presented is something that was not inside the temptee in the first place. The temptation to Adam and Eve? I'm thinking, although Scripture is silent on this, that they had been wondering about that tree and its fruit for some time, so when the serpent tempted, they were ready. And then, Adam, when confronted by God, gave in to the second temptation: Blame it on the woman! Blame it on SOMEone else - anyone else. Even blame it on God: The woman YOU gave me tempted me. . .Satan's tempting worked, because the urge to taste the fruit - and the urge to drop their reliance on God in favor of the illusion of independence - was inside them to start with.

Job? The temptation was the temptation to curse God. Great to worship and give thanks when you're the richest person in the land. When things go terribly, inexplicably wrong, curse God and die. The problem for the satan: that urge was not in Job. Satan's temptation was a FAIL. Not that Job didn't complain - he did plenty of that - but he never gave in to the urge to curse God. Satan did fulfill his role: we found out what Job was made of.

Jesus? Satan's temptations were an EPIC FAIL - even the offer of all the kingdoms of the world would not deter Jesus from his mission. Again, Satan could not tempt anyone to do anything that wasn't in their nature.

So we're back to human nature. Something within human nature, something that we seem hesitant to even mention these days - sin. Sin, not as action, but as something that is with us from the womb. The Greek term is Ha marteia - literally, "missing the mark."

I have known personally some people that have given in to that part of their nature. Trust me, that's not bragging.

I used to be Mormon (more properly, Latter-day Saint, or LDS.) No, the LDS faith is not - repeat, NOT - part of my thinking about evil. I had my reasons for leaving, but I still think very highly of most of the people that are LDS. Most of my family is LDS. Besides, I have never been on a "Let's bash the Mormons!" kick, and I have no intention to start now. This paragraph was to set up the following story.

I served a mission in the Philippines. I arrived in Manila in December, 1972, and went to my first assignment, in a couple of towns called Cainta and Taytay, in suburban Manila. My first missionary companion was an Elder from Oregon. My second was a bookish young fellow - glasses, round face, a little shorter than I was. He'd worked as a bookkeeper, and he'd been an Eagle Scout. He intended to further his education and become an accountant. His name? Elder Bishop. He went by what I thought was his first name, Gary, but I found out that Gary was his middle name. Arthur was his first name.

Arthur Gary Bishop. Name ring a bell to anyone in the mountain west region?

Elder Bishop and I became companions in February, 1973, and remained together until April, when I moved on to my next assignment, in Iloilo. We were never in touch after that - we shared a very pronounced trait in that we were both friendly enough, but hard to get close to.

Imagine my surprise when I read in a newspaper that the state of Utah had executed one Arthur Gary Bishop by lethal injection on June 10, 1988. I searched the article - this couldn't be the Elder Bishop I'd known, could it? But - Eagle Scout, served an LDS mission in the Philippines, bookkeeper (who'd had an earlier conviction for embezzlement - didn't see THAT coming.) Besides, how many Arthur Gary Bishops could there be in the state of Utah?

Yep. Same guy.

I'd lived for two months with a man who was hiding a monster inside. He was executed for torturing, sexually assaulting, and murdering young boys. Four, by one count. The ages were between 4 and 11. I was in no danger; I was bigger than he was and well able to take care of myself. I wasn't his meat.

What brought that murdering monster out of Arthur Gary Bishop?

Next post: consideration of the role of addiction in the evolution of evil.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. I'd love your thoughts.

The problem of evil. Part 1.

2011-11-06T16:55:00.000-08:00

Whence evil?

I don’t know if there are many parents who read this blog and share it with their kids. Heck, I don’t know if there are many people who read this blog at all. But –

PARENTAL ADVISORY: The following contains material that is graphic, and may not be for all stomachs. Probably want to keep the kids away from this one.

Before Halloween a friend and former colleague posed a question on Facebook: What was the scariest horror move? My response was that I have never really been frightened much by horror movies. I just can’t suspend disbelief to the degree required, so I watch the goriest scenes thinking, “Gee – nice special effects. I wonder how they did that!” The second thought followed: Real life offers horrors enough. Who needs a movie? Schindler’s List was a truly terrifying move because its basis was reality, and because, if we were paying attention, it says something about all of us, not just the Nazis in World War II Germany. Any time one group of people is given absolute, unfettered control over any other group of human beings, there will be those who abuse the power, and may not even be aware that they are abusing both people and power.

Elie Wiesel was a Jew who lived in Romania before the War. He was a teenager when the Nazis invaded. He and his family were sent to the camps. Elie survived and wrote a book about the experience, Night. It’s a small book – my edition is 109 pages long. If you haven’t read it yet, go get a copy and read it. You can read it easily in one evening. You may sleep with difficulty that night.

Scenes that stand out in memory: Wiesel describes the hanging of a boy. There were three gallows set up on the occasion; adults were hanged on either side of the boy. The hangings occurred with all the inmates of the camp assembled. When the assembly was dismissed the adults were already dead. Their bodies had sufficient bulk so that the rope applied enough pressure to finish the job fairly quickly. The inmates all had to file past the gallows, all had to look the victims in the face. They were making an example of them, you see – corpse as object lesson.

The boy was not yet dead as the inmates filed past. For upwards of thirty minutes he hung there, in the agony of his struggle against death. And the voice of one of the inmates asked a question that has, ever since, haunted those who were there: “God, where ARE you?” And the answer that came to Wiesel internally: “Where is he? Here He is – He is hanging here on this gallows. . .”

Later, Wiesel’s father fell ill. In the Nazi camps, that was usually a fatal mistake. Why would the camp officials want to feed someone who could do no work? Wiesel’s father was not sent to the crematorium, as so many were. He was allowed to endure the pain of his slow death. On the night of January 28, 1945, Wiesel slept in a bunk right above his father. On the morning of January 29, 1945, when Wiesel awoke there was another inmate in the bunk where his father had been. Thus did this teenager learn that his father had died.

After the liberation of the camps, Wiesel relates:

One day I was able to get up, after gathering all my strength. I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto.

From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me.

The look in his eyes, as he stared into mine, has never left me.

It would be so easy to attribute the horrors of the Holocaust to the insanity of individuals. A striking thing, though: When the monsters that created all of this were examined later, many were observed to be completely sane. Just folks that lived In and adjusted to the society they lived in. Thomas Merton wrote an essay about Adolph Eichmann that presented this information. Folks would do their day at work in the camp, then go home to their families.

I think I’m doing more than one post about evil and its origins. It’s such an involved subject! But I do think that one area worth considering as a source of evil is societal. German culture had a history of anti-Semitism that long predated Hitler. Martin Luther, when he argued against the overabundance of religious rules and regulations, wrote publications inviting Jews to join his branch of Christianity. Look – none of those silly Catholic laws and rituals! Luther overlooked something: Jews were not not leaving Judaism just because Catholicism wasn’t appealing; they weren’t just waiting for a new Christianity in order to become Christian. No – Jews were remaining Jews because that was the faith of their ancestors, and because they liked being Jews. When Luther realized that, he published tracts that included some of the most vituperative anti-Semitic material imaginable.

Anti-Semitism ran deep in German culture. Hitler didn’t invent this; he tapped into something that had been there for a long time. Thus, society as a source of evil.

I’ll be revisiting this topic, sources of evil. Hope you accompany me.

I’d love your thoughts.

Political observations. . .

2011-10-23T07:51:00.000-07:00

. . .from where I sit, anyway.

The only campaign for candidates for President is on the Republican side since President Obama has no primary opposition. So,the Republican side is where my observations center, for whatever they're worth.

A note on that "whatever they're worth" comment (full disclosure): I am a Democrat, and I will be voting for Obama again. Some would take that as an indicator that my thoughts may not be worth a lot. Fair enough. You should also be aware that I place the same sort of importance on your thoughts about Obama that you place on mine about the Republicans. Since we all know that neither side is going to convince the other, let's all relax and enjoy the ride.

So, the candidates (alphabetically) (approximately):

BACHMANN: She comes off as, not only an idealogue, but a something of a ditz. That's not entirely fair to her; news reports indicate that she's actually quite bright. (The idealogue thing stands.) Her problem is, she misses details. She reads something, has a firm grasp of maybe 90% of it, which is far better than most of us do, but she completely ignores the other 10%, and it's that other 10% that contains the detail that would change the whole meaning of what she read. Thus, she gave a shout-out for Elvis Presley's birthday - on the anniversary date of his death. That thing about Waterloo, Iowa being John Wayne's home town? Uh, no - Waterloo was the home town of John Wayne GACY, a serial killer. John Wayne the actor was also from Iowa - Winterset, Iowa. That thing about the Founding Fathers not resting until slavery was eradicated? Never mind - that was pure ditz. Many of the Founders were slave owners, and not interested in removing the institution.

BTW, I met John Wayne Gacy once. He was on death row at the Menard Correctional Center, near Chester, Illinois, just outside of St. Louis. I was a correctional officer, working in Joliet but on a tour of death row. I took a long, hot shower afterward.

Bachmann was the flavor-of-the-month at the time of the Iowa Straw Poll. I think she'll be little more than that. Fading fast.

CAIN: The current flavor of the month. His 9-9-9 plan has the beauty of simplicity. But, talk about the devil being in the details. One of the 9's is a national sales tax. There is not any national sales tax at this time. Iowa, my state, has a state sales tax of 6%. A 9% sales tax, in addition to our 6% state sales tax, means that if you purchase, say, a frying pan, you'll be paying 15% tax on the purchase. And this is Cain's idea of how to rev the economy? Get people to buy more stuff? Seriously? A sales tax is the most regressive form of taxation in that its impact on low-income families is far greater, as a percentage of income, than its impact on high-income people. Cain is now backing off, and presenting a "9-0-9" tax low low-income people. That's supposed to be an improvement? News flash, Herman: many low income people, because of current tax codes, are already at 0% effective income tax. So, you move their income tax from zero to zero, and slap on a 9% national sales tax.

Seriously??

Rick Perry nailed Cain on this weakness in "9-9-9": "You're going to go to a state like New Hampshire, which has no sales tax at all, and you're fixing to give 'em one?"

Cain's answer to the issue of states already having a sales tax? "State sales tax don't count." I'm sorry, Herman - say again? That state sales tax comes out of my pocket, Herman - it damn well BETTER count!

Cain's answer to "How do you get this through Congress"? "I'm not worried about Congress." Really? You need a tax change as radical as this, and you aren't worried about Congress? Hint, Herman: you should worry about Congress. 9-9-9 or 9-0-9 doesn't do anything until Congress passes it. And if the Republican Congress has had its fun dragging their feet and the President through the mud - just you wait. Memories are long. Loooonnnnggggg.

Cain's got another issue. He claims to be stauncly pro-life, but some of the social conservatives have detected a softness in his position. He has come out and said, "No abortions. No exceptions." C'mon man - even my Roman Catholic Church doesn't go that far.

In a sense, that really doesn't matter. No Republican candidate - no prominent Republican at all, as far as I know - not one - could consider himself/herself pro-life, as the Catholic Church refers to pro-life. They're not within a mile of it. Unfortunately, most Democrats are no better. So, "Vote for the pro-life candidate"? OK - show me one. Just one.

This is long enough for today. We'll revisit. As always, love your thoughts, reactions, reflections. Yes, you can be a friend of mine - a great friend, a dear friend - and disagree with me. I'm cool with that.

Thanks for hanging out for a few!

writers' block

2011-10-17T18:50:00.000-07:00

I just had a little exchange with a good friend and former co-worker, Ravis. Ravis does some writing; she';s currently working on a children's book. We exchanged a little about writers' block. I've had the issue with my blog - writers' block complete with a moat, gators and a squad of Marines.

I am convinced that the only way to get past writers' block is to just write. So, y'all are in on my big effort to defeat this case of writers' block.

Write, write, write. . .

Tomorrow night is our Parish Council Meeting. I'm the President of the Parish Council for St. Mary's Parish in Davenport. I'm also the Lector at the 5 PM Saturday Mass in April, July, and Octob. . .zzz. . .zzz. Well, I'm excited to do it.

Write, write, write. . .

About three weeks ago I drove to Des Moines and stayed for three days. The occasion was the 2011 Annual Convention of the Iowa chapter of thr American Insitute of Architects. The convention itself was a half-day of set-up and a day and a half of not much, but I enjoyed the company of those who staffed the booth with me, there was a free lunch - although, even now, I'm not quite sure what it was - and we had a dinner at a French sort of place. They had "potatoes dauphinoise". While the waitress took our order I mentioned that I'd try that dish just to find out what "potatoes dauphinoise" are. The waitress asked, "Would you like me to tell you, or do you want a surprise?" I took the surprise. They weren't bad. Think of a cross between hash browns and potatoes au gratin, and you'll haved it about right.

While driving across the state I thought often about what a beautiful state Iowa is. Those who are not from around here tend to think of Iowa as a sort of Kansas North, but we're nothing like that. Kansas is a flat as any musical key could be. Those who've ridden in the annual bike ride across Iowa will tell you, Iowa is not flat. Iowa is rolling country. There were lots of trees and the landscape was mostly green, but there was the occasional splash of golden yellow to let you know that the change of seasons was coming. And I found myself wondering, or hoping - hoping Iowans know how blessed they are in their state, in their country.

On I-80, on the way from Davenport to Des Moines, you will encounter the North Skunk River and the South Skunk River. Besides the question of why anyone would name something so marvelous as a river after a skunk (and what any Westerner thinks of as a river, any Iowan or Missourian would think of as a crick), one is left to wonder: How did they tell a North Skunk from a South Skunk? Was it the blue and gray coats?

Write. . .write. . .write. . .

There's nothing like good writing. And that was nothing like good writing. (That was a joke.)

Well, 'nuff for now of my effort to overcome the block. I love having you hang out for a few.

Faith Formation. Meri.

2011-09-24T18:10:00.000-07:00

I'm not a cradle Catholic. I came to the faith as an adult. In 1992 I started to explore the idea of becoming Catholic, and what I found was a faith that spoke to both intellect and emotion as no other version of the faith had done.

The process of my becoming Catholic was greatly accelerated in late summer of that year, when I was advised by my doctors that I needed to have open heart surgery. I had to have an artificial aortic valve. This prompted me and my family and our parish priest at the Church of the Nativity in Dubuque to think that maybe we should not wait until the next year's Easter Vigil for my receiving the Sacraments of Initiation and joining the worldwide fellowship that is the Roman Catholic Church. So, in one day, September 26, 1992, I was baptized, I was confirmed, I was given the blessing of the sick, and I received my first Eucharist. That's pretty fast work; I received four of our seven Sacraments in one afternoon. I couldn't have received the other three. We were already married, so I couldn't do that again; I couldn't receive Holy Orders, because I was already married; there probably wouldn't have been much point in Reconciliation, because I was baptized just after noon, and what could I have done between then and the 4:30 Mass? Heck, what would I have had time to do?

I joined the Roman Catholic Church, and I have not looked back. I have not regretted it for a moment; I find enormous joy in my faith. Now, I attend Mass weekly; I am a lector at the 5 PM Mass at St. Mary's in Davenport in April, July and October; I am a eucharistic minister for the same Mass in May and November. I pray daily. I am loving it.

One memory from the early years: a rather unforgettable mass reconciliation service. One of our kids wore a Coed Naked Basketball t-shirt. She was wearing a jacket to the church, so we didn't know about the t-shirt until we got inside and she took that jacket off. Then it was, "Young lady, PUT THAT JACKET BACK ON and keep it on!"

At such a reconciliation service there are opening prayers and songs, then people go to a priest to make confession. The priests are scattered about the sanctuary; the space is open enough so that it's private, but it's not in a confessional, as such. One of our other daughters - our special needs daughter - went to one of the priests and started her confession. The priest kept looking over at us, which led us to wonder. . .Turns out that our daughter had confessed our sins. At least, our sins as she saw them. Harrrumph.

Time marches on, all too fast. Now, most of those kids have had kids, and Cindy and I are grandparents to ten. Tomorrow, one of those ten will be attending her first religious ed class, and I think she's pretty serious about finding her faith, learning about Our Lord, and joining the Church.

Meri is ten. She's a fifth-grader in the Bettendorf School System. She has a little brother, Logan, who is seven and who lives to push Meri's buttons. Meri is very tall for a fifth-grader; although she's ten, she is already over my shoulder. Brownish-blond hair, green eyes. People who see us together see the family resemblance immediately. There is nothing bashful about this girl.

Meri and her brother have been through a series of shocks over the past year that I don't want to get into here, except to say that too many other kids have been seriously damaged by similar events. Meri and Logan have had a solid rock and good support from their mom and from their grandparents. And, she has learned that part of what makes Grandma and Grandpa the people we are is that our lives are built around our faith. She couldn't articulate all of that just yet, but she does know that this is something she wants to find. So, tomorrow she'll be at the 9 AM Mass with us, and there will be a short ceremony - prayers and blessings - for the kids in Religious Ed, and for their teachers - then Meri will continue to learn, to find a new way to grow, and - who knows? - maybe at the next Easter Vigil she'll become a fully communicant member.

And I pray for our grandkids like I have prayed for no one before.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. Love your reactions.

2011-09-11T07:55:00.000-07:00

9-11.

The Book of Job.

I'm in a reflective mood today, largely due to today being the tenth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks.

9-11-01, I was working for the company that is my current employer. I was a Customer Service Associate in the Call Center. My shift started, if memory serves, at 8:15 AM. I arrived in the Center at about 7:50 AM. When I got to the break room, everyone was talking about the plane flying into one of the towers. The television had one of the networks on, and the horror of it all sank in. I clung to the hope that maybe, maybe this was just a terrible mistake in navigation. But the thought wouldn't go away: amateur pilots flying little planes might make such a navigational mistake. But a professional pilot, qualified to fly a large jetliner? I don't think so. . .

Then the second plane hit. All doubt was gone. A jet hit the Pentagon. Flight 93 crashed in that field in Pennsylvania.

What I remember then: confusion. No one knowing how many planes had been taken. Rumors about other crashes. Grounding of all flights. No clue about how many had died, how many injured - people jumping from the upper floors of the towers because since death was imminent that way of dying was preferable to waiting to burn to death, people losing their life partners, kids losing parents. . .For three or four days there were very few calls that came in. Eerie silence.

It's now 8:59 AM Central - the time when the first tower collapsed. Observing a moment of silence.

Now, of course, we know. And we reflect.

Some years ago, Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a book, When Bad Things Happen To Good People. Kushner looks at three traits we attribute to God. God is all-loving. God is omniscient. God is omnipotent. In this, Kushner's attempt to come to grips with undeserved suffering, he suggests that we must surrender one of those traits. Kushner asks if we can accept the idea that there is a certain randomness in Creation, that things do happen that God has nothing to do with, and that there really is no explanation.

9:28 AM. The second tower falls. Another moment of silence.

Followed by a song - The Sound of Silence. Highly apropo.

I agree with Kushner in saying that we can't explain unwarranted pain. But, surrendering the concept of those characteristics of God? Sorry, Rabbi; I respect your life and your body of work, but I can't go with you there.

God is all-loving. God is omnipotent (and omnipresent). And, God is omniscient.

I recently finished rereading The Book of Job. This was another attempt to wrestle with undeserved suffering. It's one of my favorite books of the Bible. It's one of the most ancient of the books, and one of the more difficult to analyze. Where exactly did that guy Elihu come from? But the central message of Job still hits home.

Let's don't talk about the patience of Job. He wasn't especially patient. Friends arrived to "comfort" Job. They're silent for days. When Job finally speaks he whines like a puppy and cries like a baby. Yet the phrase recurs: "In all of this Job did not sin against God." When bad things happen we are not obligated to grin and bear it. We can tell God what we think. In any interaction between us and God, God is the grown-up. The ones who were upbraided for their sin? The three friends who insisted, "You or someone in your family must have sinned terribly. This must be your fault somehow." Wrong.

Then God answers Job. God's answer? Who are you to put me on trial? Where were you when I created the universe? Behemoth and Leviathan - those creatures you find so fearsome - are but toys to me.

In the end, Job can only bow to the wisdom of the Creator. As must we.

So, hatred motivated the attacks. Why did God not intervene - stop all this pain?

I don't know. Neither does anyone else. But, even so. . .

Praised be the name of the Lord.

And may we honor those who died - those who tried to save others, even if the cost was their owns lives - those who serve to protect us from this ever happening again. Thank you!

Confessions

2011-08-27T09:05:00.000-07:00

Earlier I wrote a series of posts about the Nicene Creed and why I am Catholic. I do acknowledge that the Roman Catholic Church is a human institution. It has its flaws, and it has its apologies to offer.

Long ago, within a few weeks of Jesus' death, the Holy Spirit inspired Christians to form a church. It was a perfect institution. Then Father, Son and Holy Spirit made the one mistake they have ever made throughout all eternity. They let people into that perfect institution. (Well, at 58 years of age, I may have something to say about shoulder and hip joints. If I'd been there at the creation, I might have had some useful tips to offer. ) (jk!!) So much for perfection. And please don't bother me with the idea that your church is perfect. No human institution is, and nothing brings out the cynic in me like a claim of perfection, either by an institution or by an individual.

So, let the apologies begin. Not from the Catholic Church - I am obviously in no position to offer such apologies - but from me. One, and only one, communicant member of said Church.

TO A LOT OF KIDS. TO A WHOLE LOT OF KIDS:

The institutional church has offered apologies for the clerical sexual abuse issue. Numerous dioceses of the Church have been sued, and some have gone into bankruptcy. That is as it should be, and maybe we haven't yet paid enough of a price.

To those who were abused, I am so sorry that this happened to you. I can't imagine the pain, the suffering, the sense of betrayal. The list of people around whom you should have been absolutely safe and protected would include parents, doctors, police, teachers - and your parish priest. I deeply regret that this was not so for you, and I suspect that your experience has led you to doubt whether you could ever be safe around anyone. I know it doesn't help much, but for what it's worth, this is truly a hot button issue for me, largely because of your hurt.

It does seem that factions within the church have decided to get on their hobby horses over this. From the conservative side,.it was "Get the gays out of the priesthood!" (Yes, I think we will also owe apologies to our GLBT friends, if for no other reason than this.) The problem I see with that position is that the Catholic Church does not hold that homosexual orientation is a sin. If the orientation is not sinful, and if one is taking a vow of celibacy, what's the issue? What, exactly, is the difference between gay and straight celibacy?

Another problem with the "Get the Gays out!" approach as a solution to clerical sexual abuse is that it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of pedophilia. The majority of pedophiles are not gay. Most are straight. Many are married, although many of those marriages are troubled. Pedophilia, like rape, is not a crime of sex. It's all about power. The pedophile's marriage tends to be troubled because these people do not deal well in relationships in which the power is equal, and that's what a marriage is.

My approach to pedophile priests: as soon as a credible allegation is made the priest would be suspended from all clerical activity pending investigation. The allegation's credibility would not be determined by the bishop, but by a board consisting of qualified people (qualification details would be too much to address here). If the board determines that the priest is guilty, defrock. Immediate, first offense. Another characteristic of pedophiles: they don't grow out of pedophilia, and they don't age out of it. The church authorities should cooperate in every possible way with criminal investigation ad prosecution. Come clean; be an open book.

And about the bishops' complicity: if a bishop hears of a priest who may be abusing youngsters, and the bishop's only action is to move the priest elsewhere and shield the priest from publicity, does that not make the bishop an accessory after the fact? And, if that priest then commits further abuse at the new parish, does that not make the bishop an accessory before the fact?

From the left, the hobby horse was, "Let them marry!" See the above info about the marital status of pedophiles.

An apology is also due to the priests of the Church. The vast, vast majority of priests understand celibacy, see it as the gift it is, and live it faithfully. Statistics I have seen indicate that, in the very worst dioceses, at the very worst, about 4% of priests may have been engaging in such behavior. I can just hear the snide "You know they all do it." What ill-informed blather! What I know is that very few ever did. Almost all remain the faithful servants of the Lord that they were called to be. I thank God for them, I'm lucky enought o have some as friends, and I apologize to all who have been painted with this brush.

There are other apologies we owe, and I'll discuss them, as well. But, for many of these, I would not hold your breath waiting. We just recently got around to apologizing for what happened to Galileo.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. As always, I would love your thoughts.

The Creed - my faith - reflections - conclusion

2011-08-14T08:54:00.000-07:00

We believe in God, the Father almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is seen and unseen.

We believe in Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

Eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God,

Light from Light,

True God from true God,

Begotten, not made,

One in being with the Father.

Through Him all things were made.

For us, and for our salvation

He came down from Heaven.

By the power of the Holy Spirit

He was born of the Virgin Mary and became man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate.

He suffered, dies, and was buried.

On the third day he rose again

In fulfillment of the Scriptures.

He ascended into Heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in Glory to judge the living and the dead

And his kingdom will have no end.

Up to this point the Nicene Creed is an almost universal statement of faith. Mainline Protestant denominations would subscribe to it. We Roman Catholics recite it each week at Mass. But Eastern Orthodox do not subscribe to it. The reason is in the next passage, and the difference is over one word:

We believe in the Holy Spirit,

The Lord, the giver of life

Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

The difference is in the phrase "And the Son." It's one word in Latin: Filioque. The Scriptural evidence seems to indicate that the statement as presented in the Creed is correct. Quite a number of times in the Gospels we see Jesus saying that He would send the Comforter. The Eastern Orthodox ask, "Does not this phrase, as written, imply a subordination within the Trinity?" The conclusion I came to: Maybe it does. But if your concern is that "from the Son" implies subordination of the Spirit to the Son, can we even say that the Spirit proceeds from the Father? Is that not also subordination within the Trinity? I think the answer may be that, maybe it is subordination, but it's subordination based on love. My further answer would be that people should not impose their conceptions of relationships and subordination on relations within the Trinity. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts. . ." To put it another way (I'm borrowing this): "A comprehended God is no god at all."

With the Father and the Son He is worshipped and glorified.

(Doesn't sound like we place the Spirit in a subordinate position at all.)

He has spoken through the prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead

And the life of the world to come. Amen.

And that's the Creed.

I am Roman Catholic. Unashamedly, joyfully Roman Catholic. I was not born to the faith. I have been affiliated with two other denominations. I left one of them; I was having some issues in my life at the time, but I never went back. The theological differences between what I think of as the Scriptural position and the positions they took became compelling to me. In this series, if you really want a starting point for those theological differences, see the discussion of homoousios v. homoiousios. If I am one, and you are the other, then it's hard to maintain that the God we worship is the same God.

The next denomination I joined was one of the mainline Protestant denominations. I got my undergrad degree while thus associated, and got about 2/3 of the way throuigh one of their seminaries, on the way to becoming an ordained minister. I'd gotten good grades in my coursework there, and I still have some Hebrew phrases and passages memorized. I did a lot of pulpit supply work (i.e., delivering sermons). I am now very comfortable speaking to groups, and I understand theological reasoning fairly well (I think I do, anyway.) The reason I became a Roman Catholic is a subject for another posting. So are the issues that I think face our Church. I'm not blind, and I don't think I'm stupid.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. Love your thoughts and responses!

The Response. Or whatever.

2011-08-07T18:46:00.000-07:00

I'm sure that Governor Rick Perry is sincere in his religious beliefs. They are, from what I've heard, longstanding beliefs, beliefs on which he acts and by which he lives. Good for him.

But about this event - The Response? The hope is that they'll fill the 71,000 seats of Reliant Stadium with people to pray for whatever they think needs praying for. Again, good for them.

The issue I have is with Rev. John Hagee. Rev. Hagee is a co-sponsor of the event. I am Catholic. Rev. Hagee is anti-Catholic. I know, he has apologized for his public remarks. Really and truly he hasn't apologized for the remarks. He apologized if any Catholic's feelings were hurt by the remarks. He says he recants, and doesn't hold those anti-Catholic views. Well. The problem is that you can't, as hard as you may try, unring the bell. You can't unscramble the egg. I'm thinking he was fully aware of what he was saying and of the impact it would have. Public people making public statements are usually very well aware of what they are saying. Besides, many of his strongest anti-Catholic statements were made in books he wrote and published. Publishing any book involves writing, countless reviews and rewriting. He knew - and he only "recanted" when things got a little - warm? - for Hagee's favorite presidential candidate. Yes, John McCain did have his Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

So you've recanted?

Horsepuckey.

This was a showcase for Gov. Perry's evangelical base. His fundamentalist base, anyway (don't confuse "evangelical" with "fundamentalist". They're not exactly the same thing.) Fundamentalist; conservative; Christian; straight. You'd be hard-pressed to find more than a token presence of anyone who didn't fit that description at this event. (And, since this is now in retrospect - I started writing this on Saturday morning, and am now writing on Sunday night - I can report they didn't get anywhere near 71,000.)

So, could Jews pray for their country? Well, sure; the old cover-up: "Everyone's invited!" was given. But, no Jewish presence among the speakers or pray-ers.

Any Catholics on the dais? Well, no. In fact - well, see the above remarks about one of the co-sponsors, the Good Rev. Hagee.

A word to the wise, Gov. Perry (or Rep. Bachmann, or Gov. Romney or Huntsman): do not disregard the Catholic electorate. We are about 25% of the U.S. populace, and about 27% of the electorate. No other religious voting block comes close to our numbers. And don't think, just because we are firmly anti-abortion and you follow us in that regard, that you have us in your pocket.

Do not disrepect us. If Gov. Perry really wants to make a run at the Oval Office, he should run, not walk, away from the Rev. Hagee, as John McCain had the sense to do.

Do not assume that, because we agree on abortion, we will vote Republican. To wit:

THE DEATH PENALTY. At least the last two Popes have been opposed to it. This is also a pro-life issue and to be a Catholic pro-life person you must respect life from conception to natural death. Meaning: no abortion, no death penalty, no euthanasia. The American bishops, as a group, have called for the end of capital punishment. So where are you, my fundamentalist friends?

IMMIGRATION. The worldwide church, the Pope and numerous American bishops have called for more humane treatment and a more helpful attitude toward immigrants. Funny thing: most of those who are the most virulent anti-immigrants are those whose own ancestors could not have gotten into the country under current law. So, where are you, my fundamentalist friends?

A huge wave of immigration occurred in the nineteenth century. A great number of Irish came over. Many of them were welcomed, and told to go right over there and see that nice Army man. See, we've got this little Civil War thing going on. So the Irish would go to see the soldier, and go to fight in a war that wasn't really his. Then, they would go to their new homes and see signs like, "No Irish need apply"; "No dogs or Irishmen." Poles and Italians ran into much the same sort of bigotry. One thing they all had in common: Poles, Irish and Italians were and are almost all Catholic.

Some felt so threatened by these Catholic immigrants that they formed anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic groups. You may have heard of one such: the Ku Klux Klan. The KKK was largely motivated by an anti-black animus, but they were also anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish. Anti-everything except WASP.

Part of the reason the Catholics built such an extensive school system was that, in many parts of the country, the good Protestant parents didn't want their kids contaminated with that Papist stuff. So Catholic kids couldn't get into the public schools.

And now you see the conservatives in their attitudes toward immigration from Mexico, and you can almost see the white robes and hoods coming out. Truth is, those robes and hoods never went away. The immigrants - then white, now brown; then, as now, almost exclusively Catholic - are still seen as a threat. Didn't want to allow those Irish, Polish and Italian kids into school then? You don't want to allow the Mexican kids in now.

And that's what Gov. Perry wants to associate with? Even be in the forefront of?

Oh, yeah, a third issue: THE ECONOMY. Catholic social teaching has never allowed for furthe enrichment of the already-wealthy at the cost of leaving behind the poor, the less fortunate. Rep. John Boehner is a Catholic, and in the recent budget debates his own bishop sent him a letter to remind Rep. Boehner of this. The late pope John Paul II saw that a common thread between the Communist systems and Capitalist systems was that both, rather than enhancing the value of the individual, sought to lessen that value - to grind up the value of the individual. Reread Ayn Rand. Don't pay attention to what she says about her novels' heroes. Pay attention to what she says about everyone else.

Don't take the Catholic vote for granted. To play to your base and to ignore us could be a huge mistake.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. As always, would love your res;ponses.

Three strikes and other legal silliness

2011-07-30T10:11:00.000-07:00

George Will, conservative columnist, once wrote that the five most glorious words in the Constitution are, "Congress shall make no law." Never mind what might have followed in the text of the Constitution. Just, "Congress shall make no law." That's a truly libertarian position to take, from one who used to be a Goldwater speech writer.

"Congress shall make no law." Well.

There are laws that obviously need to be made, but there is a law of unintended consequences that isn't written, but surely binds. To wit:

Once upon a time, someone thought a "Three strikes and you're out" law would be a pretty good idea. On the surface of it, it sounds great. Three felony convictions and, buddy, you're locked up and the key is in the sewer somewhere. But there were unforeseen issues. There were those who were repeat offenders of violence, and it's hard to argue that these should be allowed back on the street. But the three strikes laws give no consideration to whether the three offenses are, in fact, violent. Does it seem reasonable, given our already overcrowded prisons, that we should place non-violent offenders away for life while we grant early release to violent offenders?

It makes no sense to me. I worked at an adult max joint - the Joliet Correctional Center - for about three years. Part of the center was a Reception and Classification Facility. Inmates would be transported in by their county sheriff - the Cook County one was, by far, the largest - and the state correctional department would determine what kind of facility the inmate would be shipped to. Maximum? Medium? Minimum? If you came in with a life sentence, it was a stone-cold guarantee that you would go to a max joint. When I worked in Joliet, I rubbed elbows with people who would have killed me without blinking an eye if they had the chance. They'd done it before. I dealt with rapists who continued to see women - and men - as so much dressed-up meat. I've had boiling water on me. I've worn urine home. I've worn a bloody shirt home (the blood wasn't mine; I was a kind of crazy person in the day.) It was during that time that my drinking was at its worst.

And if I had run into someone who was in a max joint for a non-violent offense I'd wonder, "What in HELL are you doing here?" But, under current law, that's where they are,

Shame on us and our vigilante justice.

But, then, there are areas where I go all vigilante. To wit: pedophiles. Those who would sexually abuse a child. For these people, I would be all in favor of a life sentence. No parole. First offense. I know - there would have to be gradations, and I would advise any teenager to wait for marriage - subject for another discussion - but I don't think you can treat a relationship between an 18-year-old and a 15-year-old in quite the same way as you would treat a 40-year-old who abuses a 4-year-old. Still, I'd be pretty severe. There are two particular reasons for my thinking this way.

One, most criminals do age out of their types of crimes at some point. A 45-year-old armed robber is a comparatively rare critter, and armed-with-intent and assault with a deadly weapon are, for the most part, a younger person's game. Sexual offenders tend not to age out of their habits. A pedophile at 30 is a pedophile at 70. (Note the frequent use of the word "tend". I'm aware there are exceptions.) The only way to keep society safe is to remove them permanently.

The second reason has to do with that unintended consequences thing. Davenport is a case in point. Iowa has a law that a sex offender cannot live within a certain distance of a school. Good idea, right? Except. . .except. . .there is a mobile home park way out west on Kimberly Road. It's not near a school, and offenders can live there. So offenders do live there - a cluster of them. The schools are safe - great! - but what do you think the families who live in or near that mobile home park think of this? Are they just as pleased as punch that so many sex offenders are clustered right over THERE?

So just remove them

Or let me have at 'em. Father of 5, grandpa to 10 - who owns garden shears. I leave to your imagination. . .

Borders, RIP

2011-07-18T19:35:00.000-07:00

I see in the news today that Borders is closing its 400 remaining stores. I am heartbroken.
Borders wasn't done in by competition from Barnes and Noble. B&N has been in financial trouble, too. It's a shame, because this could have been and should have been a rollicking competition between two great companies that understood two of the great loves of my life: books and music.
No, B&N and Borders didn't do each other in. Rather, both were done in by far more disturbing trends. One was the onset of the Internet. A second was Amazon.com. And yet another was Kindle.

I'm so bugged by the Internet because it seems to have shortened attentions spans in a way no one would have believed possible ten years ago. "TLDR" - Too Long, Didn't Read - seems to apply to anything longer than a short paragraph. It bothers me because, admittedly, some of my trains of thought get a little long. We've become a nation of readers who think that such garbage as the Harry Potter series and the Twilight series are good writing. Never mind the cliched plots and plastic characters.
We've become a nation of self-styled "speed readers." Woody Allen had a great line about that: "I took a speed reading course. It was great! Read War and Peace in one night.

I think it had something to do with Russia."

If Amazon.com has been a reason for the demise of Borders and the near-demise of B&N, {sigh} {rolls eyes}. Bookstore browsing is a joy, and something I could do for hours if permitted. If your idea of "browsing" is browsing through Amazon (once you get out of the socks and watches), you won't be surprised by anything. You usually knew what you were looking for before you went there. You won't experience the unexpected find at a used bookstore like The Source in downtown Davenport. I found a book by Anthony diMello in a Borders in Colorado Springs. I'd thought the book was out of print. I found a copy of Montesqiueu's The Spirit of the Laws, a book often cited as being influential in the French Revolution, in a B&N one day. Who reads that? Well, if you're into things like libertarianism or maybe liberty, equality, fraternity, maybe you should. Jaroslav Pelikan's history of Christianity is something you'd probably not start looking in Amazon for, but if you're interested in the subject the display on the shelves of an actual bookstore just might interest you.

B&N and Borders have fallen victim of our not wanting to search. They have fallen victim to our intellectual laziness. Why wrestle with, say, Niebuhr or Husserl or Plato or Shakespeare or Milton or Hopkins when we can get it all in a paragraph in Wikipedia?

And what happens to poets when we can only think in one paragraph?

And Kindle? Pulleeeze. Try passing your Kindle "book" to your son or daughter. I know of someone who was reading a bio of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Her friend expressed interest in the book. The first person used a kitchen knife to cut the book roughly in half. She let her friend read the part that she'd already read; she kept the part that she hadn't yet read.

Try doing that with Kindle! But Kindle does play into our one-paragraph-at-a-time thinking. I guess it's supposed to be - I dunno, businesslike?

Thanks for hanging out for a few. Love your thoughts.

BTW, wonder if Borders will be having a sale?

The Creed, continued

2011-07-17T12:08:00.000-07:00

We believe in God, the Father Almighty

Creator of heaven and earth,

of all that is seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God,

Light from Light,

True God from True God,

Begotten, not made,

One in being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation

He came down from heaven.

By the power of the Holy Spirit

He was born of the Virgin Mary

and became man.

For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate.

He suffered died and was buried.

And then the statement that it's really all about:

On the third day he rose again,

In accordance with the Scripture.

We Catholics recite the Nicene Creed in every Sunday Mass. I would hope that repetition never makes this statement go flat. This statement should set off a "GLORY, HALLELUIA!!!" reaction every time it's said.

If this statement is false, we base our whole faith structure on nothing. With Paul, we must observe: "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all" (emphasis mine.)

But no. That is not where we are. We hear the news from the angel at the tomb: "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, He is risen."

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

He ascended into heaven,

And is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead

And his Kingdom will have no end.

Next week - the rest of the Creed, and how one word contributed to a Churchwide split.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. Love your reactions!

Furthermore. . .

2011-07-10T09:17:00.000-07:00

Today's post will be a further reflection on faith. I'd wanted to step deeper into the Nicene Creed. But there's an observatiion I'd want to make about the Creed.

Note that the first word in both segments we've looked at so far is "we": "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty"; "We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ." The third section also starts with "we": "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life." Always "we". In the Hebrew Scriptures the relationship with God was a relationship of community. It was Judah to whom God spoke. God spoke through prophets, but God usually spoke through the prophets to the community, to the nation. (Also - the prophetic word was almost always aimed at those inside the community. That word rarely was aimed at anyone outside the community.) Where God offered some level of salvation to an individual, it usually came to no good. Hezekiah had been a good and righteous king. When he was told that he was about to die, he pled with God for an extension. God gave Hezekiah fifteen more years - then spent those 15 years wondering why he'd bothered.

"We". Community, always community. I pointed this out to a couple of friends, that in the Old Testament salvation was always a communal business. To one steeped in American concepts of "individualism" (yes, Ayn Rand was a proponent of such individualism and Ayn Rand was an atheist - not just coincidence) - to one whose spirituality has a strong tint of "You and me, God", this idea that God deals with communities as communities is really a disruptive concept. So, they asked, "So this emphasis on community changed in the New Testament?" NO - it didn't change. "The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common" (Acts 4:32). And Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, was quite articulate in stating that every part of the community needs every other part of the community (see esp. 1 Cor. 12:12-31. Then, if you really want to see what it's all about, go on through 1 Cor. 13. 1 Cor. 13 is all about love - but what's love if not shared in community?)
Paul assumes the existence of the church - community. Later, St. Cyprian of Carthage said, "Outside the Church" - outside of Christian community - "there is no salvation." Roman Catholics would assert this. Eastern Orthodox would assert this. Both Luther and Calvin affirmed this.
"We." We just can't overlook the cruciality of community in the Christian life.

Back to the Creed next week, I think. Thanks again for hanging out, and I'd love your reactions.

That jury thing

2011-07-05T20:44:00.000-07:00

I write this with Caylee Anthony in mind. I write, actually, in defense of the jury.

I am so incredibly saddened by what happened to Caylee that I have no words. My porch light most assuredly was on at 9:00 tonight. I cannot comprehend a mother who, even if we accept her account of events, was partying for the month between the time her daughter disappeared and the time she finally got around to telling someone. I'm married to a mom of 35 years. Two of our daughters are moms. I work with a lot of moms, and am related to a lot of other moms. The very minute any child of any of them came missing, every single one of them would have given a whole new meaning to "raising hell." NOBODY - least of all, them - would have been spending a minute partying until their kid was found.

So, I think Casey Anthony killed Caylee Anthony. I think Casey Anthony got away with murdering her daughter.

Wait - I thought this was supposed to be a DEFENSE of the jury?

Yes.

I have sat on juries twice. Both were criminal trials. Both were cases involving sexual assault of a student on a college campus in the Quad Cities. In both cases I served on the jury through the reaching of a verdict. In one case I was the jury foreman. One of the juries convicted. The other acquitted.

(This gets a little graphic here.)

The first trial involved a staff maintenance man at Augustana College who had sex with a student summer worker. Her account: he cornered her in a restroom in a dorm. He forced her to the floor, pulled off her shorts, and assaulted her. His account: she purchased condoms ahead of time; at the end of the work day they went to a dorm room. There was foreplay, followed by intercourse. The fact of sexual intercourse was not in dispute. The question: was this a rape that occurred in a bathroom, or was this consensual sex that occurred in a dorm room?

We convicted. At one point, after a few hours of deliberation, I asked my fellow jury members, "Does anybody seriously think anything at all happened in that dorm room?" We all said, "No." But we weren't absolutely certain. We wondered why the Rock Island Police Department did no investigating of that dorm room. (Answer: the suspect didn't even mention the dorm room until later. It was no crime scene.) We would have loved to know if there was any evidence of sexual activity in that dorm room, but the evidence at trial was silent. What we found out after the trial: the defense had lab people search that room with a fine-toothed comb. If they had found so much as a hair from either suspect or victim, game over for the prosecution. But the lab folks found nothing. Neither of these people had ever been in that room.

Wouldn't we have loved to know that in deliberations? But we couldn't know that. For the police that room wasn't a crime scene. The rest room was. For the defense, they knew there was no trace their man had ever been there, but the defense is under no obligation to present that at trial. So, there was something we just didn't know.

We convicted. A couple of months later the suspect was sentenced. Before sentencing, the judge affirmed that he thought we'd reached the right verdict, and sentenced the convict to 15 years.

And I replayed that trial again and again, in my waking hours and in my dreams. This was a family man whom we separated from his family (the thought later occurred to me that, even accepting his version, he was going to have sex with a college student in a dorm room. Not very family-friendly, I'd say.)

A couple of years after, I Googled the convict, just to see what turned up. He'd committed suicide in prison. And again, the waking reflections - the dreams - the nightmares. This trial stayed with me - was there any way around the verdict? Was there any possible alternative outcome? Eventually I made my peace with it. I didn't rape that girl. I'm just not bolted together like that. He raped her. I didn't tie that bedsheet around that light fixture. . .I just did the duty I was called to do.

The second trial, we acquitted. The girl was a student at St. Ambrose. She had celebrated her finishing her final exams in her senior year. The celebration involved about 10 beers and a Jager. She went to her dorm and went to bed. She woke up to find a hand where she'd given no permission for a hand to be. She screamed, and the assailant ran off. She had a roommate who woke up with the scream. But, the roommate saw no one. All I could think was, ten beers and a Jager. I don't even know if anything happened at all.

In the case of the Augie student, the assailant was well-known to the victim. The St. Ambrose student didn't make an ID until months later, and she made it from a newscast. The Augustana case was handled by the Rock Island Police Department, who knew a crime scene when they saw it and did understand evidence. The St. Ambrose case was handled by campus security, who obviously didn't. They did get Davenport PD involved - four days later. Davenport PD noticed that there was only one way out of the building (except emergency exits, which would have sounded an alarm.) Davenport PD noticed that the one way out had a security camera. They noticed it four days later. D'ya kinda think that if Davenport PD had been called immediately, it would have taken them two seconds flat to say, "That camera - where's the tape?!" But four days later. . .

So please don't think too harshly of the Anthony jury. The missing pieces of information they would have loved to have seen - a cause and time of death, for starters - will drive them crazy. It's one thing to say, "I think Casey Anthony is a murderer." It's quite another to say, "I have seen evidence that is convincing beyond a reasonable doubt that Casey Anthony killed her daughter."

And let's not think that Casey Anthony has an easy road from here on out. For the rest of her life she will be the one who murdered her own daughter and got away with it. I don't forecast a surfeit of prospective employers. She threw her entire family under the bus in the trial; I doubt that she can go home again. Maybe some network will pay for an interview. I don't know.

Thanks for hanging out. Love your reactions.

Today, July 4, 2011. . .

2011-07-04T09:16:00.000-07:00

I will wear black.

One of my dear friends posted an item that some would wear black today because of what happened to a woman who was trying to board a flight. She's 95 years old, a cancer patient, and she was wearing a diaper. The Transportation Security Agency personnel who were doing the screening at that terminal subjected this woman to a search that went as far as making this woman remove that diaper. There is, I guess, some justification for concern on the part of the TSA - they didn't know who it was that dressed her that day - but really? Seriously?

When my friend posted this, she posted with a note, "Take back Independence Day." I thought that was a bit overstated. Did you lose Independence Day somewhere? I thought it was. . .yeah - it is! Right there, on July 4. Like always. Just where we'd left it. Besides, the concerns brought up were constitutional, a matter of the Bill of Rights and that unreasonable search and seizure thingy. The U.S. Constitution didn't take effect until years after the Declaration.

Still, my friend makes a point that I now see as valid. (And it's really a socialistic point from that libertarian.) If one person's rights are diminished or violated, then the rights of all of us are violated. If one person's dignity is assaulted, then the dignity of all of us is under attack. Point well-made. Point taken.

So I wear black. If I knew that woman, or if we had any mutual acquaintances, then I would say that I am so very sorry that someone representing my country - someone who, since I vote and I pay taxes, is in my employ - thought it either necessary or appropriate to do that to you. I am sorry. We all should apologize.

We celebrate Independence Day for the promise of America. We celebrate because of an ideal, because of what America should stand for. In that very Declaration we see the profound statement: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (how about we leave that word out?) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Please note that this does not say that all white natural-born U.S. males are so endowed. It's a statement of a universal - all are thus endowed. Today I wear black, because we've fallen short.

I wear black for that woman in Florida.

I wear black for Native Americans. We (yes, we - I'm not all Anglo although you couldn't tell by looking) have been starved, driven off lands onto reservations, the land no whites wanted. The Rez becomes a lifelong trap. Poverty is endemic; alcoholism abounds. The whites who started educational systems were well-intentioned, but part of their effort was to eradicate the native civilization. Children who spoke their own language were severely punished. As a result, the number of Arapaho speakers, to use one example, is low and dwindling. Diabetes on the Rez is almost pandemic.

Mount Rushmore comes to mind. A monument to four Presidents, carved right in the middle of what had been Native American lands. I know what that looks like to most. Do you know what that looks like through Native American eyes? Betcha don't know. Bet you never thought about it.

I wear black for African Americans. Faulkner, in writing about his South, treated it as a cursed land, and Southern civilization as a cursed civilization. The source of the curse was that it was stolen land (from the Native Americans) built by stolen labor (slave labor). The question: Was it just the South? And, is it any less true now? Have the vestiges of racism gone away?

Short answer: no, they have not. Case in point: Barack Obama and the "birther" garbage. He'd produced his short form birth certificate. That's all we would have required of Hillary Clinton, of John McCain, of Mitt Romney. Not only did the birthers not have any reason to doubt that Barack Obama is a native-born citizen; they had been presented affirmative proof that he is such.

It was not enough for the birthers. It wasn't a matter of Obama's standing. The simple fact of the matter is, the birthers could not stand it that an African-American is President. The birther nonsense stemmed from racism, pure and simple.

Case in point: DWB is an offense that will still get you pulled over, despite police departments' protestations that they do no racial profiling. For the unititated, "DWB" - Driving While Black. Or, since this happens also to those of Hispanic heritage, Driving While Brown.

Case in point: two reporters - one black, one white - graduated from college about 25 years ago. They hired on to the same news organization. They handled savings and investments in a similar manner. Both married and had families. After 25 years, the white reporter was about $500,000 ahead of the black one. How could this happen? Fifty years ago both of these reporters' parents went house-shopping. Both came from professional families, but there real estate salespeople wouldn't show houses in certain affluent areas to blacks. That still has repercussions.

I wear black for our treatment of undocumented immigrants. The various ethnic groups that have made up our country have long been possessed of a "last one off the boat" thought pattern. The result is they sound like a KKK chapter. The KKK was, in its origins, an anti-immigrant group. They didn't like blacks or Jews, but they really didn't like those Poles or Italians or Irish. They were all Catholic, and the Poles and Italians - for that matter, the immigrant Germans - didn't speak much English. The Catholic schools were founded largely because the Catholic kids weren't allowed into public schools. Now, the immigration is Mexican. They don't speask much English; they are almost uniformly Catholic and they have an additional quality that makes them especially inviting as targets: their brown skin. So, kick 'em all out. Never mind that they've been holding a job and paying taxes for twenty years. Never mind that you're imposing a family split because the kids were born in the U.S. and are citizens.

And about that little bit of uneducated garbage that I see on Facebook: "You're in America. Speak English." No. No. How's this: "You're in America. Speak Cherokee." Or, "You're in Arizona. Speak Spanish - it was there before English."

Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she,

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breath free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the tempest-tossed, to me.

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

We might as well take that statue down and send it back to France.

I wear black for our schoolkids, who are relegated to middle-of-the-world-pack status in math and science. Our school years are limited to about 180 days. Can't overload the poor little brains! OK, maybe. But if we want to know why India, China, Japan, Korea are gaining on us so fast technologically and economically, pay attention to their longer school years. Pay attention to Americans' lack of family involvement in their kids' education. Pay attention to funding. Abundance of funding doers not necessarily guarantee good outcomes, but pay some attention, anyway. And quit whining about those overpaid, overbenefitted teachers. They are no such thing.

Come back home to the refinery;

Hiring man says, "Son, if it was up to me";

I go down to see the VA man;

He says, "Son, don't you understand. . ."

I am a Vietnam-era vet. The status is a matter of when I enlisted in the Navy; I never saw the 'Nam. Bruce Springsteen's Born In the USA (the song, not the whole album) is a protest against the way such vets were treated by the society we served to protect. Note that the sentences are unfinished: "Son, if it was up to me. . ." "Son, don't you understand now. . ." Springsteen didn't have to finish the sentences. Every single one of us vets knows the rest of the sentences. America celebrates those who serve, before it tosses them aside. And I'm seeing the same sort of pattern setting up for those who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Go serve! We honor you! We'll take care of you!" Then, when they come home, "We're broke!"

So I wear black for all vets who served so well and are served so badly.

I do love my country. I wore the uniform of the U.S. Navy, and I swore to defend my country. I love that America, while it has its flaws, has many people in it who are aware of the flaws and who want to fix them - who strive for our reaching of the higher dream that we should represent. I love that we can speak in opposition to our government - well, many of us can - without fear of repercussion. There is so much to love, and I would enlist to defend this nation again. I thank God that I'm an American.

But. . .but. . .

"It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people (and the immigrant, and the vet, and the schoolkids, and the Native Americans, and that lady in Florida) a bad check, which has come back marked, 'Insufficient funds.'"

But -

"But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt."

Preach it, Dr. King!

There was One who also preached a higher standard:

"Inasmuch as you have done it for the least of these, my brothers (and sisters), you have done it to me."

That's the hope we cling to. In my work with the core group at St. Mary's - in my involvement with Quad Cities Interfaith and its immigration task force - that's the hope I cling to. We can do better. And, until recently, I was convinced that America wanted to do better, that we wanted to rise above and reach for better. I'm not as sure now, but I cling to the hope. I do cling.

So, I wear black today.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. Your reactions?

More on the faith

2011-07-03T15:05:00.000-07:00

We believe in one God, the Father almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth,

Of all that is seen and unseen.

We believe in one lord Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

Eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God,

Light from Light,

True God from True God,

Begotten, not made,

One in being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

Another assertion against those who would maintain that this creation, since it has so much evil in it, could not have been created by a good God. Another assertion that Jesus Christ, in a mysterious way completely beyond our comprehension, is the same as the YHWH that the Hebrew scriptures maintain is God.

For us, and for our salvation, he came down from heaven.

He was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.

Most presentations of the Creed insert the word "men" into the first line. When reciting the Creed at Mass I, and a lot of other Catholics I know of, omit the word "men". The reasons are obvious to me.

For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate.

He suffered, died and was buried.

This statement, as obvious at it seems to us, was a major bone of contention in the early church.You can see St. Paul in debate with the early stages of this position. The question: If Jesus was truly God, could he have suffered? Would God have even been capable of suffering? Or was this all a front, an effort at making the appearance of Jesus' being fully human? Would God even have been capable of dying? Paul stated that this whole idea of a crucified God would have been nonsense to his civilization: "The message of the cross is folly for those who are on the way to ruin, but for those of us who are on the road to salvation it is the power of God. . .While the Jews demand miracles and the Greeks look for wisdom, we are preaching a crucified Christ. . ." Since nothing ever goes away, two and three centuries later some who called themselves Christian also found the idea of a crucified suffering God to be untenable.

But - Jesus was also fully human. That being the case, he could suffer. He could die. And the conclusion that the Church came to was that Jesus did just that.

How?

Remember: don't ask how. We can't get it. Just ask Who?

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate - really and truly -
He suffered, died and was buried. He was indeed.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. The last few posts have been about that which is most central to my life and being. That, and family, but since I am Catholic, I can't really separate the concepts of faith and family. They go together.

Love your reactions.

Vi

2011-07-03T09:48:00.000-07:00

One July 3, long, long ago, in a place far - well, never mind, it wasn't so far away - Vi was born. Violet Marie Bales.

Vi grew up in Rock Island, surrounded by family. The average American family produced the average American girl. Except, she was anything but average. You had to know her, or have the good fortune to be related to her, to know that, though. She never was much of one to seek to get her name in the papers.

Vi graduated from Rocky High School. Then we had this little affair in Europe - World War II, which was really a continuation of World War I, after a 21-year hiatus. Vi went to work at the Servus Rubber plant in Rock Island. Then, in 1945 that little European business ended. Vi met a guy that was returning from that European unpleasantness. Vi and Walter married in 1946, and Vi became Violet Marie Hendrix.

And then they started something. A LOT of something. Vi and Walter (and they were and are a matched pair) became the parents of 14 - count 'em, 14 - kids. Eleven daughters, three sons. I married one of those daughters. Three sets of twins (the only way they could get a boy was to take a girl along with) - six babies in diapers at the same time. It's wearing me down just to think about it. Walt worked at the Arsenal, and retired from there. Vi worked at her family, and never really did retire.

There was joy and accomplishment. All of the kids graduated from high school. All grew up to become the best citizens they knew how to be. That, in and of itself, is a remarkable accomplishment.

There was pain that had to be almost unbearable and searing. Vi anmd Walt lost one of their sons, Paul, in infancy. Their two other sons served in Vietnam, and came back with their issues from that. Vi has buried grandkids.

And yet, through it all, Vi lived her life with integrity. Utter, complete integrity. She knew who she was, and she knew what drove her. She was a dedicated mom. She was a happy person, easy to get along with, but if someone - anyone - messed with one of hers, that unfortunate would find that they had aroused a tiger - a ferocious one, at that.

The part of her attitude that I remember best: Life is not to be pissed and moaned about, and it isn't all about you. Get over it, get over yourself, and you might actually enjoy the ride.

Walt passed in '88 after a bout with cancer. Vi passed a few years ago, after her own bout with cancer. They are buried side-by-side - as I said, a matched pair - in National Cemetery on Arsenal Island. Today, Vi's birthday, my wife and daughters and granddaughters, along with some of Vi's other daughters, visited the gravesite. In celebration of Vi's birthday. In honor of a woman worthy of honor. In celebration of a life lived long and well.

In honor of Mom.

I'll have another posting today, in continuation of a theme I've been writing on. This, though, is for Vi.

My Catholic faith, part quatro

2011-06-26T10:05:00.000-07:00

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,

Eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God,

Light from Light,

True God from True God,

Begotten, not made. . .

Then comes a statement that was hotly debated during early Christian history. It has tgo do with the relationship between Father and Son:

One in being with the Father.

This was a debate over one letter. In Greek, the word homoousios means "the same as," or "one in being with." It posits identity between the Father and the Son. The word homoiousios does not suggest such identity. The Father and the Son are very much like each other, but they are not the same. The answer that classical Christianity settled on was that Jesus Christ was "one in being with the Father" - i.e., homoousios. When we Catholics say the Nicene Creed, we affirm the homoousios position. Most Protestant denominations also subscribe to the Nicene Creed, and affirm the same. Eastern Orthodox do not use the Nicene Creed, but the difference between Eastern Orthodox and Western Christianity does not hinge on this phrase. Eastern Orthodox would also affirm the homoousios position.

The Scriptural backing for such a position is plentiful and, to me, compelling. When Jesus says, "I and the Father are one"; when Jesus says, "He who has seen me has seen the Father", he seems clear enough. But this is even clearer if you read in the original Koine Greek. In the Gospel of John, you see frequent "I Am" sayings of Jesus: "I AM the bread of life". . ."I AM the bread that came down from heaven". . ."I AM the living bread". . ."I AM the light of the world". . ."I AM the gate for the sheep". . ."I AM the resurrection and the life". . ."I AM the way, the truth, and the life". . .and, maybe the most emphatic of all, "Before Abraham was, I AM."

The Greek term that is translated as I AM is ego eimi. It's so strongly emphatic that there's really no adequate English translation. It's roughly equivalent to announcing it through a bullhorn" I - and only I - am. . ." And the writer of the Gospel sprinkles Jesus' saying this all over the place. Think he's trying to make a point?

Indeed, he is. The audience to Jesus' saying this wasn't a group of Greek speakers - the New Testament was written in Greek, but when Jesus said this he would have been speaking in Aramaic, a close descendant of Hebrew. He would not have said "ego eimi." He would have used the Hebrew term: YHWH. The ineffable name - the name that was so sacred it could not be pronounced - means "I AM" (or I AM WHAT I AM, or I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE - the Hebrew language doesn't use tenses quite like English does.)

Ego eimi = YHWH.

Before Abraham was, YHWH.

And we wonder why the Jewish crowd wanted to run him off a cliff? Homoousios!

Seems pretty persuasive to me, and it seemed so to the early church. But, as I learned in Dr. Healey's class, the first principle of theological history is, "Nothing ever goes away." So there are those groups who maintain the homoiousios postion even today.

Thanks for hanging out for a few! As always, I'd love your thoughts and reactions.

My Catholic faith and me, part drei

2011-06-19T10:28:00.000-07:00

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God. . .

I have seen much written about opening communications between Muslims and Christians. That is well and good and to be applauded, but the limitations of such dialogue must be recognized. Dialogue will open communications and further understanding, but if the idea of such dialogue is to convert the Muslims to Christianity, or to convert the Christians to Islam, forget it. It's on this very point that conversion stops. Islam holds that there is one God only. Trinitarian thought, the triune God that is standard to Christianity, the dual nature of Jesus Christ, are complete anathema to Islamic thought. In fact, Islam is much closer to Judaism than to Christianity in many respects - which only highlights the tragedy of the struggle in the Middle East. It's a fight between cousins.

The Hebrew word for peace - shalom - implies much more than an absence of war. It refers to one's being well with the universe. The Arabic word that captures the same concept: Salaam. Quite a resemblance there! The words are cognates, and there are quite a few cognates between Hebrew and Arabic.

But I am part of the Christian faith community. Thus:

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God. . .

And the Nicene Creed continues:

eternally begotten of the Father. . .

That also doesn't go over very well in the non-Christian community.

God from God,

Light from light,

True God from True God. . .

The nature of this Jesus Christ has been a source of much discussion, even during his own lifetime. The disciples wondered, "Who is this man, that even the wind and sea obey him? Who is this man who, using just a few loaves and fishes, feeds thousands? Who is this man who causes the blind to see, the lame to walk - the dead to live?" In asking this, they were really asking the only question that they could ask. The history of Christian thought tells us that if we start down the paths suggested by the question "How?" or "Why?" we're going to wind up down a wrong path. We can't get our heads around concepts like, "How can God be three-in-one?" "How can Jesus be, at one and the same time, fully human and completely divine, with no confusion of the natures?"
No - the only question we can really ask is, "Who?" Who is the God-Man? Who was it who, in his earthly life, showed us who and what God is? Who is it that, by his Passion and Resurrection, provided the onkly means of salvation for us all? No other question really matters.
'Nuff for now. Thanks for hanging out for a few, and I'd love your thoughts.

Catholicism and me, part deux

2011-06-09T18:19:00.000-07:00

I am a Roman Catholic.

We believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, of all that is seen and unseen..

That's the starting point.The rest of what I want to write about this is based on the Nicene Creed, one of the creeds of the early Church. The creeds were written to reply to contrary positions that some had taken. The form of theological debate was frequently a bit different than what we're used to. One group, holding to one position, would show up at a council with as many longshoremen as they could round up. Another group, maintaining a different position, would show up with their longshoremen.

Definition of a heretic: the guy with the weaker longshoremen.

One of the heresies in the early history of the church was that a good God could not have been the creator of an existence with so much evil. Today's exercise in theology: Go to Genesis 1 and see how many times the phrase "And God saw that it was good" is repeated. This apparently was unconvincing to the folks who maintained that, since a good God could not have created such an evil world, then the creation must have been the work of some other being, some demon. The position of the Church catholic (the word "catholic" - small "c" - means "universal") is and has been that the Creator made a good creation, and was, in fact, the same God that we came to know in the Hebrew scriptures, the same God that was the Father of Jesus Christ, the same God that sent his Son to redeem that creation. I believe in God - one God - the Father Almighty, maker of all that is seen and unseen - every atom, every molecule, every cell of your being and mine.

The second step of Alcoholics Anonymous is, "Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." That's a terribly tough sticking point for many, for two reasons. This is the step that frequently separates the "want tos" from the "want to want tos". One of the reasons has to do with that word "sanity". Do you mean to suggest that we're insane? But an AA definition of insanity sheds much light. Insanity is repeating the same action, expecting a different result. If I know that every time I start to drink I wind up drunk, then isn't it insanity for me to start drinking, thinking that it will be different this time? And so the disease and the chemical kill us. Usually slowly and painfully. Usually taking away everything we'd thought dear before it kills us.

With that, how can you believe in any kind of God? The second reason that step 2 is so problematic has to do with that Higher Power. Our thinking gets so overblown, so egotistical, we start to think there could be no power higher than us. But, that Higher Power is what will restore you to sanity.

Does God still work in lives? Does God still work miracles?

I'll take you to any open AA meeting and show you ten of them. Miracles. Walking, talking, breathing. Living lives they've gotten back.

We believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, of all that is seen and unseen..

There is a Jewish translation of Genesis 1:1 that I find interesting. It's a little different from the translation we're used to seeing: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," or "In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth." But the Jewish translation reads, "When God began to create the heavens and the earth. . ." I like the suggestion that God's creation isn't finished; it's still ongoing. God keeps on creating me, and you, and all the earth. And so I, Rick, alcoholic, last had a drink in 1985. Trust me, it took more than a little of God's grace, but God's grace has been there.

We believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, of all that is seen and unseen..

And I love Him dearly.

More later. Thanks for hanging out for a few!

Catholicism and me

2011-06-06T20:01:00.000-07:00

I am Roman Catholic. I wasn't born into the Church; no cradle Catholic here. I've had a long and twisty spiritual journey. I don't talk much about denominations to which I used to belong. To say that I used to belong to denomination x, and that I no longer do, is, at least implicitly a putdown of denomination x, and I don't wish to go there.

I am Roman Catholic. As that twisty journey progressed I found myself developing my list of heroes in the faith, and I found that most of them were Catholic.

I was drawn to the Catholic faith of Thomas Merton. Merton had a childhood and youth that was chaotic, to say the least. Much of his growing up was done in England and France, sometimes with parents and sometimes without. As a young adult he experienced all of the decadence and sinfulness of the jazz age, of the pseudo-intellectuality of the undergraduate. But then he was touched by the Spirit and experienced metanoia - Greek, meaning "turning about" and almost always translated as "repentance" - that led to his joining the Catholic church, to his becoming a Cistercian monk at the Abbey of Gethsemani, to his writing of his experience in The Seven Storey Mountain. He was a prolific writer - his undergrad degree from Columbia was in English, and he taught briefly at St. Bonaventure - and much of his writing was of a devotional nature. But not all of it. In issues of war and peace, the position I have today is very close to Merton's. We recognize a right of self defense, and would concede that some wars probably needed to be fought. But, we would both maintain that there are few, if any wars, that, if traced to their roots and origins, made any sense.

I was drawn to the faith of Angelo Roncalli, who when elected Pope took the name of John XXIII. He owed his selection largely to the electors' belief that Montini, the guy they really wanted, wasn't quite ready. Roncalli was, at the time of his selection, a month shy of his 77th birthday, and was a lifelong Curialist. How much of a threat could he be to the old, established ways of doing things? But then he called Vatican II into session. He wanted, he said, to open the windows and let some fresh air in. Turns out, there was a hurricane blowing, and there was little that was left undisturbed. Fresh air, indeed! Did he know that all of that would happen? Like I said, John XXIII was in the Curia all his life.

I was drawn to the faith of Mother Teresa. She was born into decent circumstances, and could have chosen any path in life. She chose the path of service. She found herself teaching in a school maintained by her order in India, and served in a rather comfortable circumstance. But then she was moved by the plight of the poverty-stricken in Kolkota. She founded the Missionaries of Charity and spent the rest of her life in ministry to the poor, the sick and the dying. Her ministry was to the poorest of the poor; a concept like "assisting the worthy poor" would have been completely alien to her. She did not restrict her ministries to Catholics. Muslims who died in her care would hear holy Q'uran read to them; Hindus would receive water from the Ganges; Catholics would receive last rites. Mother Teresa's guiding principle was one I hope that I have adopted: that any human being is to be valued, and that any human being deserves to live and die die with dignity. Just. Because. They. Are. Human. No other reason needed.

I was drawn to the faith of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. He was the reconciler nonpareil. In any bishops' committee meeting, when the discussion would reach an impasse, someone would say, "Who we need here is Joe Bernardin." A story that tells a lot about him: early in his time as Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago, he attended a town-hall type discussion. I don't remember the topic, but it was a controversial one. There was a lady in attendance who was particularly vocal in arguing the other position from Bernardin's. Many years later, after he'd learned that he was dying of cancer, he made a point to call this person. He still maintained the position he'd taken that night many years before, and she still maintained hers. But Bernardin reached out to make sure she knew that, despite their differences, he thought of her as a valued sister in Christ. He was the Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago. There was no reason at all that he should have even remembered the discussion, let alone one individual who was there. But he did. The Body of Christ is big, and there's lots of room for diverging opinions.

'Nuff for now. More later. Bedtime. Thanks for hanging out - love your company, and I'd love your thoughts.

Memorial

2011-05-30T09:06:00.000-07:00

In 1976 - the bicentennial year of our nation - I boarded the USS Basilone DD-824 for the first time. I joined the crew in Port Everglades, Florida. Serving in any branch of the military will leave you with stories. There was the guy who got seasick while the ship was at the pier in Norfolk. The ship was a destroyer. Even in glassy-smooth seas a destroyer finds a way to pitch and roll. If you get seasick at the pier, you're really in a world of hurt when you go to sea.

There was the Fourth of July we spent in Eastport, Maine. Other sailors have other memories of Eastport, and I hear that the paternity suits were settled OK. My memory: on the quarterdeck, on the midwatch (the midwatch, in Navy lingo, is 12 midnight to 4 AM.) Eastport is very near to the demarcation between the Eastern time zone and the Atlantic time zone, so sunrise in early July occurs very early; dawn started breaking at about 3:30 AM. I still remember the beauty of that sunrise over the Atlantic.

Eastport is across a bay from Campobello Island. Campobello was a Roosevelt family retreat, and it was where FDR, after a swim, developed symptoms that turned into polio. Disney, in Pearl Harbor, missed so badly on so many points, but maybe the worst was the scene where FDR tosses off his - well, no. I'm not advertising it. Suffice it to say, you may call your movie "entertainment" and point out that it wasn't meant to be taken as history. Fair enough - but it's cheating, at the very least, to take a well-known historical figure and have him do something that he could not possibly do. I think it would have been much more inspiring to show FDR as a powerful leader who could work through his handicap. But, that's just me.

I remember that Miami in mid-July gives a whole new meaning to the words "hot" and "humid."

The thing I didn't know: The USS Basilone had a boiler explosion in February, 1973, three years before I came on board. Three sailors died in that explosion. Eight others were injured. Eleven of my Navy brethren are in my thoughts today. God be good to you, guys, and may we all remember, especially today.

On October 12, 2000 the USS Cole was refueling in the Yemeni port of Aden. Shortly after 11 AM a smaller boat approached. The rules of engagement at the time stated that our ship was not to fire on another ship unless our ship was fired on first. This smaller boat had no intention of firing. It was a suicide attack; the boat was loaded with hundreds of pounds of explosives. Seventeen sailors were killed; 39 injured. Fifty-six of my Navy comrades.

May God be good to you, and may we all remember. That's what today is for.

The attack on the Cole was an al-Quaeda operation, and bin Laden was heavily involved. In the end, a Navy SEAL team was involved in taking out Mr. bin Laden. Instant karma's gonna get you. . .

Freedom isn't free. Today is a day to remember - a day to remember those who serve and are serving. For Walt and Bill Sr. and Jim and Joe and Donald and Sam and Josh and Mitch and Chuck and Chris and countless others - thank you.

And to the 67 of my Navy brothers and sisters - thanks. May God be good to you. May we all remember.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. Loved your company, and I'd love your thoughts.

Hotels - elkmoose or melk - magic light bulbs

2011-05-28T10:34:00.000-07:00

Last week I attended a conference of the Rural Electricity Resource Council, in Johnston, Iowa. Last week I said something about hotel rooms all starting to look alike. My first item of business is to take that comment back.

The hotel and conference center in which this event was held was going for a northwoodsy sort of theme. The first thing I saw was a plaster - elk? moose? melk? - in a pond in the parking lot in front of the entrance. Why, that is something I bet you see every day in Maine, or Wyoming or Montana. Those places are just loaded with plaster melks standing in ponds. See 'em all over the place. I couldn't decide what exactly it was. The nose was too long to be quite an elk, but the body was way small and not proportioned right for a moose. Thus, a melk.

A few feet away from the melk in the pond was a plaster bear. I don't think it was a grizzly, but I don't think the owners were paying enough attention to detail to add the silver tips to the fur. I do know this: in the north woods, if a bear is a few feet from a - critter? - both the bear and the critter are thinking "Lunchtime for bears!" One is thinking, "Run!" The other is thinking, "Run faster!"

The room decor was not typical of hotel rooms I've seen. The nightstand lamp stands were shaped like cowboy boots. Besides the main bed there was a bunk bed. And, there was a teddy bear on the bed with a card: "If you want to take me home, just take me to the front desk and we'll charge the $19.95 to your room." It was a cute enough bear, but there were some issues. For one thing, "cute" doesn't really do anything for me. For another, the hotel charges were to go on an expense report. I could just see myself trying to explain a charge for a teddy bear in my expenses. For a third, we have ten grandkids. We'd have insurrection - maybe civil war - if I showed up with one teddy bear. I left it in the room.

I arrived in Johnston late on Monday afternoon. That evening some of us got on a bus and headed to Rollings, Iowa for a tour of an LED plant owned by a company called Innovative Lighting. We have an LED - light emitting diode - providing light in one of the fixtures of our house. I really think LEDs are the wave of the future. For one thing, the bulb we have is rated for a useful life of 25,000 hours. Even if you get half of that, 12,500 hours at 4 hours per day means that you won't have to change that bulb for 3,125 days - about 8 1/2 years. A second item: an incandescent bulb that is rated to use 100 watts would be replaced with a compact fluorescent using about 25 watts - or an LED using 12.5 watts. Yes, the upfront cost is a bit higher for LEDs, but for the life of the bulb it's worth it.

(BTW, if you do want to try LEDs, don't go for the generics or the store brands. Quality is a bit uneven. Stick with the name brands.)

As we left Rollings, I saw a scene that summarizes what I do for a living, and what my company is trying to do. As we left the plant that works on the LEDs it was about sunset. On the horizon I saw a wind generator. If you want to reduce the amount of carbon being discharged into the atmosphere you need to take action on two fronts: generate from clean renewables and use less. Not rocket science. I do not want to leave to my grandkids and great grandkids a world that we've turned into a chuck of charred ash just because we could. I don't want that for your kids and grandkids and great grandkids either.

A sight that struck me as odd on the bus trip back to Johnston from Rollings: a billboard by a farmer's field. Lord knows billboards are common in Iowa, and farmers' fields are not rare. But this billboard was at least 100 yards from the highway, and it was not large enough to be read from the highway. I'm guessing the farmer who owned the field is really familiar with the product advertised on the billboard. I hope the advertiser is happy with their audience of one.

One other thing that will stick with me: one of the presenters was doing a session on saving energy, and went into a discussion about some of the scams that are out there. One of the scammers advertised that their product would provide savings by removing thermodynamics from your electric lines. That got a laugh out of this roomful of engineers. How, exactly, do you remove the study of heat from power lines? For that matter, how would you get thermodynamics into a power line?

'Nuff for now. Thanks for hanging out with me for a few. I'd love your reactions!

Moms

2011-05-08T08:23:00.000-07:00

It's a trip down Memory Lane today for a visit with women who have raised me, shaped me. If I am anything like a worthwhile human being today, it's largely because of the women I've been lucky enough to have in my life. I have in mind my Mom, my sister, and my bride of almost 36 years, Cindy.

A common thread among all three of these: they were, and are, all protective of their own. All could be polite, mild-mannered, UNTIL you wronged one of their own. Then you'd find out that these were really tigers. They didn't have fingernails; they had claws. "Here - bring your face a little closer, so I can scratch it off."

Memory: I think it was when I was in second grade at Jefferson Elementary, the same school that two of my grandkids go to now. My teacher and the principal thought I had the mumps, so they made me go home. They made me stay home for two weeks. I didn't have the mumps, and I really did like school - the first of my really bad teachers that soured my attitude came the next year - so I was disappointed. So was Mom; she knew mumps when she saw them, and I didn't have the mumps - until my two weeks were up, and I could go back to school. That's when I got the mumps. Mom marched me into the principal's office, pointed at my face and said, "THAT'S the mumps!" I wound up with a month off. Mom wound up with a point made.

Fortunately, the teachers and administrators at (now) Jefferson-Edison Elementary today seem to have a much better idea of what they're doing than did the ones of my long-past era. Now, it's a pretty impressive lot.

I think of tigers. I think of my sister Sheri and her battle to get her son the educational program he needed. It involved battling school authorities, boards, I don't know who-all, but battle she did. And she won.Sheri has had many issues to deal with, and she has always come through. I have no doubt she will keep on doing so.

I think of the influence Mom had on my faith. We didn't wind up in precisely the same place. Mom was a lifelong Baptist. I, after a long and twisty spiritual journey, have found my home in the Roman Catholic Church. But Mom and I and Sheri all wound up with a faith that there is something bigger than any of us, or all of us. We all wound up with a faith that the confines of this life are not eternal confines (now, how's that for an oxymoron? "Eternal confines"? Really, Rick? How about, "The confines of this life do not last forever". Better.) We all have faith that God loves us, and that Jesus is alive and Jesus saves. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. We believe in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God. . .

As does my wife. Cindy has been with me for every step of that journey. She has been with me for every step of parenting 5 kids, of grandparenting ten. I should say, I've been with her for every step of it, for she has been far better at it than I. And talk about tigers: she has battled schools over the needs of our special needs daughter, and they have found the programs she needed. She has - uh - shared her views in frank and useful discussions with other school authorities when she thought they were too free in handing out detentions to our kids. She's done the same with me when I got off the straight and narrow. I hope our kids and grandkids know how lucky they are.

Some years ago Joan Didion wrote about a 5-year-old girl. This girl was found by the California Highway Patrol. She was clinging to the Cyclone fence on the center divider on Highway 5, east of L.A. - clinging so hard that her fingers had to be pried from the fence. She'd been left on the highway 12 hours earlier by her mother. The little girl, when being interviewed by the C.H.P., said that, after her mother made her leave the car, she "ran really hard" for a while to try to catch mom. I can hear it now: "Mommy? Mommy!" Whatever sentence Mommy got wasn't enough, and I'm not sure even God could make hell's fires hot enough. I wonder how Dante would have treated this.

I have a very good idea how lucky I got, in Mom, in Sis, in my wife. I think about that every day. I am not close to worthy of being so richly blessed, but blessed I have been. I think of you every day, and I thank God for you every time I think of you.

Happy Mother's Day!

As always, I'd love your thoughts. Thanks for hanging out!

Why do you seek the living among the dead?

2011-04-23T19:14:00.000-07:00

“Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised.”

Thursday night was the night of betrayal – of trial, however illegal under Jewish custom and law. The end of the Holy Thursday liturgy indicates it’s a pretty bleak event. The altar is stripped of decoration. The priest covers the Hosts with his cope as though to protect the sacred body, and no hosts are left in the front of the church. The congregation leaves without exchanging greetings, without speaking. Just leave.

“Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised?”

On Good Friday, the trial that mattered – never mind legalities, a trial was legal if the Romans said it was. Jesus is scourged. Scourging was, in and of itself, such a severe punishment that many did not survive it. He is stripped of his own clothes and is dressed in purple. Purple was a symbol of royalty, and this is a mockery of Jesus, King of the Jews. A crown of thorns is placed on his head. If you’ve ever been pricked by a rose’s thorn, you can imagine the pain and humiliation. He is beaten. He is spat upon. And when the mob is presented by Pilate with a choice – Jesus or Barabbas? – they shout for Barabbas to be released. As for Jesus? “Crucify him! Crucify him!” is the demand of the mob. Many of the members of that crowd were, doubtless, among those who greeted Jesus triumphantly just a few days earlier. Now: “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

Guess I can’t preach to them. Would I have been any different? Would you? “Father, forgive us, for we know not what we do.”

They compel him to carry his own cross. And they crucify him, between two thieves. And he dies. This death was not like any other that anyone had seen. From about noon to three, darkness covered the face of the earth. Just before his death, Jesus cried in a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” When one was crucified the cause of death was usually suffocation, but thirst would not have been far behind. It was not a quick death; with no intervention to speed the process some would hang on the cross for days before merciful death came. Jesus cried with a loud voice. That, in and of itself, would have the Roman soldiers, who had likely seen dozens of crucifixions and who knew the expected course and outcome, wonder “Who is this? It seems like he commanded even the moment of his own death!” And then there was that bit about the veil of the temple being torn, top to bottom. Indeed – who was this? WHO??

No doubt, he was dead. That spear, and the blood and water flowing, clinched that. No doubt he was dead. He was buried by his own followers, in a new tomb in which no one had been buried. He was wrapped in burial cloths. A huge stone was rolled in front of the tomb.

He was dead.

One definition of death is that it’s the separation of body and spirit. That definition comes from Greek philosophy. This definition indicates that we have paid lots of attention to Plato, but not so much to the Hebrew Scriptures. In Jewish thought death meant the complete destruction of the individual – complete immolation of body and spirit. Once you were dead you were gone. More than once in the Psalms the Psalmist asks if God could receive any praise from the dead. It seems that the writer takes for granted that the answer is, “No – once dead, we are gone. Completely.” The concept that there may have been any sort of personal immortality doesn’t arise until late in Old Testament times.

Jesus was dead. And yet. . .and yet. . .

“Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised.”

Can you blame the women for being afraid? Wouldn’t we have been? And they didn’t understand immediately what was going on. Would we have? In fact, the writer of the Gospel According to Mark left it at that. The original ending was the end of verse 8. Everything after that was an addition. “They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

John Shea wrote a book called Stories of Faith. Toward the end are three poems, one of which is The Storyteller of God. Every time I read that poem I choke up at several points. I won’t put the whole poem here. I will recommend strongly that you look up a copy of that book and read that poem. “He is not here, but he has been raised,” has meanings that are brought out by the passage toward the end:

A stone the size of twelve men

moved like a mountain on its way to the sea

and on the fresh wind of morning came the Son of Man,

his shroud a wedding garment,

his feet between earth and air in dance.

Death, Sin and Fate poured rhetoric

into the stirring air about them

but the silent Son of God only danced

to music beyond their words.

He whirled around Death

and with each turn

Death himself grew old

til with a last unbelievable look

he saw no more.

Then wordless

Christ spun around the words of Sin

til a stammer started, sound choked,

and finally there was only a mouth

without a voice.

Next Fate heard the risen footsteps

And frost formed on his tongue.

As Christ leapt before him,

he froze in mid-syllable,

iced by the warmth of God.

Now

there was only the morning

and the dancing man of the broken tomb.

The story says

He dances still.

That is why

down to this day

we lean over the beds of our babies

and in the seconds before sleep

tell the story of the undying dancing man

so the dream of Jesus will carry them to dawn.

He is RISEN!!! He is risen indeed!!!!

Could you not wait with me. . .

2011-04-21T20:07:00.000-07:00

Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, "Sit here while I go over there and pray."

Tonight - Holy Thursday or, depending on who's referring to it, Maundy Thursday - marked what was, in any earthly sense, the beginning of the end for Jesus. He had spent the last - year? three years? the record is uncertain - of his life preaching: "The kingdom of heaven is at hand!"; teaching: "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me"; giving sight to the blind and freeing those possessed and curing the ill and even raising the very dead.

It had to come to this, didn't it? Someone who says things like "The first shall be last and the last shall be first" is bound to be a bit unsettling - downright scary - to the powers that be. Sadducees and Romans alike had to be unnerved by someone who was utterly indifferent to the power they thought they had. That raising the dead thing - this guy could be awfully hard to defeat. The Scribes - the teachers of the law - and the Pharisees had to be mightily put off by Jesus' insistence that all their wisdom, accumulated through all the ages, wasn't so wise after all.

He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and agitated. Then he said to them, "I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here and stay awake with me."

If it was difficult to be an opponent of Jesus, being a disciple of his was no day at the beach, either. Still isn't, as you might have observed. He keeps making these outrageous demands of us. "Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also." Jesus - seriously? "I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me. . .just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me."

Jesus doesn't ask much of us. He just asks everything. All we are. All we can do. All we will ever be. If one would follow Jesus, then obeying Jesus is mandatory, not optional.

And the pressure got to one of the disciples. Too much for Judas, who betrayed Jesus and set in motion the events that came to a head on that Maundy Thursday.

But all Jesus wanted from Peter, James and John was the company of his friends on the most dangerous night of his life. But they couldn't do it.

Then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, "So, could you not stay awake with me one hour? Stay awake and pray. . .,"

Could they not stay awake with me one hour? The question haunts me, even now. My prayer life - much of it - consists of just that. Stay awake with the Lord. Just listen. Rest in Him. It's not easy to stay awake with the Lord for an hour. But, if ever there was a night to pull an all-nighter with Jesus, Maundy Thursday is the night. I don't know that I'll manage an all-nighter. But sometime, after all are in bed, I will spend some quiet time with him.

On this night. On the night he was betrayed, with a kiss, no less. On the night he was arrested, and tried. On the night when Peter, no less than Judas, betrayed Jesus - three times before the cock crowed. On this night, let me be with you, even for a while, Lord.

Because everything you do, everything you suffer, even your death itself, is for me. And us.

Then he came to the disciples and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. . .See, my betrayer is at hand."

Thanks for hanging out. Loved your company. Would love your thoughts.

Reflections - apologies - repentance

2011-04-16T18:31:00.000-07:00

We have come to the start of Holy Week. Holy Week starts with Palm Sunday, on which we observe the occasion of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. It has all the marks of a triumphal entry - people shouting, palms waving - but the triumph is later shown to be illusory. On Holy Thursday Jesus is arrested. That night - the trial. As unfair, as rigged as the trial was, it leads to Good Friday and the Crucifixion. It's entirely possible that some of the same people who were shouting "Hosanna!" the loudest on Palm Sunday were even louder in shouting "Crucify Him!" on Good Friday.

Holy Week is the culmination of Lent. Lent starts on Ash Wednesday and, technically speaking, ends with the beginning of the Holy Thursday evening Mass. The beginning of that Mass starts three days - the Triduum - that form a liturgical season by themselves. Three days - Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and extending until the Easter Vigil Mass on Saturday - that are the most holy, most sacred of seasons. Roman Catholics observe this; most Protestants do to some extent, and Eastern Orthodox do, although their calendar is usually about a week different from the Western calendar.

Lent, for these Christians, is a season of intensified reflection, repentance, prayer, almsgiving. Christians are not unique in observing such seasons. For Jews, this closely parallels the Days of Awe, the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. For Muslims, Ramadan resembles actions taken during Lent, although the purpose is (slightly!) different.

Lent. A time to get right with God, and with each other. Among other things. And so, since a lot of people who are very important to me may see this, I want to make right with you whatever I may have made wrong.

In the political realm, I am a liberal. Many of my friends and relatives are not. I do believe in healthy and vigorous debate, and I have no problem with the fact that others are not on the same side of issues as I. I have no apologies to make for my stance. However, if I have let it become personal, please know that I don't think of it that way. Please know that, if I have seemed dismissive of your positions - if I have seemed to not take your position seriously - that has not been my intention. I do take you seriously; you are every bit the patriot that I am, and you love our country every bit as much as I. I apologize if I have given the impression that I think otherwise. I served in the Navy so we could be free to differ with one another (OK, I didn't do that all by myself, but you get the idea.) I am deeply sorry if I have left the impression that I think there's only one position to take, and that's mine.

On the personal level, I get a bit pedantic at times. ("A BIT pedantic, Rick? Is the ocean a BIT wet?") To those whom I have put off by this tendency, to those to whom I have given offense, I sincerely apologize. I have been guilty of Hamartaeia. It's Greek, it literally means "missing the mark", and in the New Testament it is translated as "sin". If I have done any of this to any of you, please accept my apology.

On a societal level and on an environmental level, I am sorry for any part that I have played in perpetuating or even creating injustice in my little corner of the world. I am sorry for not having taken a strong enough stance to remove some of the injustice that exists. Please know that I am trying to make this better.

I confess to Almighty God,

And to you, my brothers and sisters,

That I have sinned through my own fault,

In my thoughts and in my words,

In what I have done and in what I have failed to do,

And I ask Blessed Mary, Ever Virgin,

All the angels and saints

And you, my brothers and sisters,

To pray for me to the Lord our God.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. I'd love to see your thought.

If you give someone a fish. . .

2011-04-10T15:22:00.000-07:00

If you give me a fish, you feed me for a day.

I need some help on this, although I think I know the answer:

Is DWB still a traffic offense that will get you stopped by a police officer? For those who may not be aware, DWB is "Driving While Black." I'd only expand it to make it "Driving While Brown." Whatever shade.

My wife and I are involved with an organization called Quad City Interfaith - QCI for the remainder of this post. A large part of QCI's approach is to help the various congregations establish core groups of 10-30 members. Those groups are free to explore areas in which they may be able to, as the QCI mission statement says, create a more just society in the Quad Cities. QCI itself has four primary areas of concentration: immigration, education, employment and health care/transportation equity. The congregations' core groups may choose one of QCI's areas of focus, or they may pursue their own.

St. Mary's Catholic in Davenport had its first core group meeting last Tuesday. We discussed areas of concern, areas in which we could make a difference. It soon became obvious that the topics of immigration and racial profiling were on our minds and hearts.

We are aware of the limitations of organizations such as ours. To give one example, employment is a QCI concern. We know that QCI can't create a job. (Well, strictly speaking, QCI does create one: they hire an intern each year, usually from St. Ambrose University.) But while we know we can't create jobs, we can call attention to unfair hiring practices.

A picture in the newspaper tells a story without meaning to. There was a group photo taken of a work crew that was renovating a civic center in Rock Island. On that crew of ten or so people, not one was African-American. Seriously? Not one black person working on the MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. CENTER, for crying out loud? Maybe the contractor has a lot of crews working. I hope so. Maybe those crews do have some diversification. I hope so. But, symbolically, if nothing else - isn't there something wrong with this picture?

If you teach me to fish then you have fed me UNTIL. . .

Until the river is contaminated or the shoreline seized for development.

Anyway, racial profiling and immigration are on our minds at St. Mary's.

Is DWB still an offense that will get you pulled over?

Two cases in point:

A black male, in his early 20s, was pulled over for not using a turn signal. I've seen lots of drivers that have not used turn signals. I have not seen a police officer pull anyone over for this failure. What makes this interesting is that this police cruiser had followed this person for some distance, through some turns. The driver, acutely aware of the DWB thing, was scrupulous about using his turn signals every time he needed to. So, was the failure to use a turn signal an excuse to pull this person over? Did the officer follow this person for that distance just waiting for some offense?
A Latino driver had an officer approach his car. The driver's offense? He was talking on his cell phone - in his parked car - in a legal parking place. After some time in interviewing this driver, the officer asked, "What are you doing here?" It was a rather nice housing development, and this person was seemingly rather out of place. No ticket was issued, but someone was harassed. I'm sorry - what else would you call it?

And do you think that a Caucasian would have been pulled over in either instance? I doubt that I would have been, and I'm not even all Caucasian. You just can't tell by looking.

I'm fully aware that there are always questions, and before we start screaming "Prfofiling!!!" we must be sure of the details. If you're driving with a taillight out anyone anywhere would be pulled over, and if you didn't have a valid driver's license when you got pulled over you'd be in a world of hurt, no matter who you are, no matter where you are, no matter when. But that wasn't the case in either of these instances.

So, my answer to "Will DWB still get you stopped?" my answer is, "Yes - in places and at times it happens."

And it's not right. Not ever. Not in any place.

So, our core group is setting up a meeting between our parishioners and members of the Davenport PD. We would like it to be a Q&A meeting, and we're exploring and discussing the format. We would have folks aware that if they are stopped despite their observance of law, there are things to do and not do - like, Get the officer's name and badge. They have to give that up. Get details and record them. Such as that.

QCI and our core group can't change the world. We know that. We can, and we will, strive to make our little corner of the world a more just place.

But if you teach me to organize then whatever the challenge I can join together with my peers and we will fashion our own solution.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. I'd love your reactions.

About the "whys" and the "wherefores" and the "therefores" etc etc etc

2011-03-27T11:16:00.000-07:00

Philosophy and theology have always had an interrelationship. They address some of the same questions. Philosophy existed first - the Israelites in the Hebrew Scriptures weren't awfully concerned about the abstractions of either philosophy or theology. They were much more concerned about how to relate, both one to another and to God. Judaism, as presented in the Old Testament, is a very concrete religion of every day life.

It did come about that ancient Judaism encountered Greek civilization. It was never an easy encounter for the Hebrew patterns of life and thought; the Greek was far more elegant and, frankly speaking, a lot more fun. Greek civilization came to dominate nearly every realm that it entered, even the Roman. Rome conquered Greece, then Greece conquered Rome. The language of the New Testament, and the mother tongue of Christianity, was not Hebrew or Latin or Aramaic. It was Greek.

So, with the interrelationship of languages and cultures the inevitable did happen.The Christian theologian Tertullian asked, "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" The answer: they wound up having much to do with one another. As Christianity evolved, theologians borrowed increasingly the vocabulary and concepts of philosophy. Such terms as:

Ontology - the nature of being. What is the meaning of existence? Never mind the meaning; what is
existence? And, the question that theology may approach but with which philosophy has no luck:

Why existence? Why is there anything at all? How would you answer this?

Epistemology - the nature of knowledge. How do we know? Do we start as blank slates, knowing only by our own senses, or are there things we know intuitively, without being told? When theologians examine this the question changes a bit: how can we obtain saving knowledge? Is our imagination primarily analogic - there are analogies that can be made between the Eternal and the existence we know - or is our imagination primarily dialectic - God is so wholly other, completely different, from anything we know that we cannot attain to any knowledge absent revelation, and even that can only be metaphoric? One of these - analogical or dialectical - is prominent in Protestant thought; the other is the same in Catholic thought. I know I'm running the risk of oversimplifying, and I'm not going to tell you which is which. What is your approach?

Soteriology - the study of salvation. This term would have no meaning for philosophy. Saved - from what? To what? For Christians, the question revolves around Jesus Christ. What does his Passion and Resurrection save us from? How does his sacrifice do that? What is needed from us - is Jesus' sacrifice the be-all-and-end-all of salvation, or do we have a role as well? The differences between the Catholics and the Protestants in the Reformation have been overstated. What think ye?

It is necessary to be careful in trying to relate philosophy and theology. The Greeks - I have Plato and Aristotle in mind - may have been close to truth in some areas, but their concept of the Deity was far off. For Plato, the Supreme Being was "The form (or the idea) of the good." That is not personal. It's a concept. You can't pray to a concept, and you can't establish a personal relationship with a concept. Karl Barth, a Swiss Reformed theologian, said "God has real hands - not claws like we have." The God of Christianity - and of Judaism, and of Islam - is a personal God. Aristotle's concept of God - "thought thinking about thought" - is even more abstract, even less personal. (BTW, if you want to start reading these philosophers, let me suggest that Plato is much more accessible for the beginner. Just sayin'.) So, be careful about borrowing too much.

So maybe I should have put a "Heavy sledding warning" at the top of this posting, but I don't think it was all that heavy. If it was, it was my aim to make it accessible. But I'd love your reactions to questions posed:

Why is there anything at all?
Analogic or dialectic? (with awareness that everyone operates in both modes at given times)

Who, exactly, was Jesus to you?

Thanks for hanging out for a few.

Beatitudes Part One

2011-03-12T09:36:00.000-08:00

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Catholic youngsters are a pretty impressive lot. They go to some of the best schools. Catholic schools consistently have great test scores, and Catholic schools can, without permission or apology, keep faith education as part of the curriculum. The school uniform serves a purpose - less distinction between rich and poor, fashionable and not-so-fashionable. There is a code of conduct that is consistent and consistently applied. And - the biggest factor, in my opinion - Catholic schools can make demands in terms of parental involvement that public schools could not make. Perfect? No. Really, really good? You betcha.

At the college level some of the most distinguished colleges in the country - Georgetown and Notre Dame are among the most competitive in the country for admission - are Catholic. The youngsters who don't want to wander that far from home can go to a local Catholic college. Either way, there will be a great group of alumni to soften the blow when the real world intrudes. As it will.

And then something happens. I'm told this also happens in a lot of Protestant churches also. From about age 22 to about age 35 the young adults tend to lose interest. Most are not really hostile to their church of origin, and most would say, "You know, I really should get more active again" or "I really should go back."

And then, sometime around age 35-40 they do start to come back. There are many ideas suggested to explain the pattern. I think one possibility that makes sense is that, sometime around age 35-40 many people begin to be seriously confronted with the inexplicable.

Birth - either the mystery of birth or the mystery of the inability for this to happen.

Sickness. Why would someone who has never smoked in their life and whose home has not a trace of radon get lung cancer?

Death. There may be a scientific explanation of how - cancer, heart failure, stroke, complications of diabetes - but the "why" question escapes science. Why does a 40-year-old die from an aggressive form of prostate cancer while cigarettes may kill another person but take 90 years to do it?

In our family we are dealing with that right now. A family member has a condition called Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. I Googled it last night. This is a man who had always been a strong, vital person - Vietnam vet, Army Special Forces, a runner. He's one of the dearest, sweetest, most laid-back, accepting individuals you could ever know. Now he has a few months to, at the outside, a couple of years left.

Why? I can't explain. Neither can you. We're better off not even trying.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Jesus' Sermon on the Mount - particularly the Beatitudes - are phrased in such a succinct, pithy manner, yet in a sentence like this one so much meaning is packed that we've spent the better part of 2,000 years trying to unpack it all.

"The poor in spirit" - those who recognize their utter dependence on God for everything.

"The poor in spirit" - those who realize that mysteries are mysteries to us, but in the end all is in God's hands. The poor in spirit do not occupy themselves with trying to impress God with their wisdom or their intelligence. The poor in spirit know they can't. They may not be comfortable with mystery, but they are comfortable with God.

The success of AA - for me, anyway - hinges on our recognition of our need for our Higher Power, whom I recognize as God. No one gets sober by the power of his own mind. No one gets clean by being arrogant.

So, during this season of Lent, I hope to become poorer in spirit and more humble in submitting myself to God.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. I'd love your reactions.

Late-night Musings and Ramblings

2011-03-04T21:23:00.000-08:00

As I write, my wife and I are sitting across the dining room table from each other, each typing away on our laptops. We're geezers, so this is our idea of a hot Friday night date. Y'all go ahead and have your double Scotch. We'll pass the Pepto Bismol.

Someone earlier this week said on Facebook that they'd been carded for some activity for which they had to be at least 18. One day they'll learn to be flattered at being carded. Heck, I don't even get carded at an AARP meeting.

Our son-in-law, Chris, has been deployed to Afghanistan for the past year. His time there is up, and he is out of country, en route to the US. We couldn't be prouder. He won't be back in the USA for a few days yet - Monday or Tuesday - but at least he's out of Afghanistan.

Early on, while the Taliban was still in power and bin Laden was still in Afghanistan, someone suggested that we just bomb Afghanistan into the Stone Age. Which led to a question:

How do you bomb a place forward 500 years?

So Chris is serving. I was honored to serve in the Navy. (I'm a Vietnam-era vet who never saw the 'Nam - and I cry no sad tears over that.) My father-in-law was in the Army in WWII; one brother-in-law was in the Army in Korea, two others are Vietnam vets (not just Vietnam-era vets like me, but the real thing, one a Marine, the other in the Army.) Yet another brother-in-law on that side of the family served in the Air Force. (Air Force? How'd THAT guy get in here?) (jk!) My brother-in-law on the other side of the family - my sister's husband - was Army, Special Forces, also a Vietnam vet. That side of the family is also loaded with military and ex-military: Navy, Air Force. . .

I am in a family that serves. And, so one observation, strongly felt: every single person who serves honorably is my brother or sister. Every. Single. One. From the days of the Revolution until now. And when I read of a young soldier - sailor - airman - who is killed, a piece of my heart breaks. That was my brother or sister, and a bit of something that is mine is gone. And I get just a little bit angrier at politicians who think of soldiers as their personal toys to play with as they please. (Hear me, Mr. Bush? Rummy? Cheney? I'm sorry, Mr. Cheney - when it was your time to serve you had other priorities. And Mr. Bush was in the Texas Air National Guard - protecting Texas from all those marauding Oklahomans, I guess.)

Another observation, coming from the military and my background as a correctional officer at a maximum security adult joint. There's no such thing as an "individualist" - rugged or otherwise.

The individualist soldier gets himself/herself killed, and maybe their buddies along with. Oh, wait - he's an individualist. He needs no buddies. Wrong!!! The military learned, long ago, that a soldier won't fight and die for flag, or freedom, or country. Those concepts are just to high-flown and abstract. But a soldier will fight to the death for his buddy. The Marines have a saying about a soldier they respect: they'll go "back-to-back" with that soldier. Need an explanation?

The individualist working in a prison also risks getting killed in the line of duty. You're no better than your backup.

In the faith community there are no individualists. The "you-and-me-Lord" spirituality has no scriptural warrant. In the Hebrew scriptures salvation was always a community affair. The New Testament notes that, in the earliest church, the members held all things in common. Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, made clear that all members, with all their variety of gifts, need each other. "There are many parts, yet one body."

Even as staunch a believer in the power of the individual as Ayn Rand forgot herself now and then. She tried to create the perfect person, the epitome of the individualist, in Howard Roark. Even setting aside for a moment that Roark was a rapist - oh, wait, that was just an individualist seeking his own pleasure - Roark depended on other people. If he hadn't found a market for his architectural style, he may still be a quarry laborer. You see, for a free market economy to work, even the strongest individual must have a free MARKET - consisting of other people. You know - the ones Rand would refer to as the "sniveling masses."

All of those who served are my brothers and sisters. We have needed each other. All of those in the community of faith are my sisters and brothers. We need each other. And I love each one dearly, and honor all as best I humanly can.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. Love your reactions, as always.

Hearing

2011-02-27T10:51:00.000-08:00

One of my earliest memories: when I was two or three years old, Grandma babysat for me while my parents went to a Dukes of Dixieland concert. It was a bit of a trip for them - Grandma lived in Cedar Rapids and the concert was out of town (Manchester, Iowa? Rochester, Minnesota? I know it was one of the -chesters.) The arrangements for the travel and for the babysitting indicated one thing: My Dad was a serious jazz fan.

Like father like son. I have become a jazz lover also. A different sort of jazz, to be sure; Dad was a Dukes of Dixieland, Al Hirt, Pete Fountain Dixieland jazz guy. I'm a Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis, John Coltrane guy whose TV is often on the Music Choice channel for smooth jazz. I'm a smooth fellow, you see.

I love jazz. I love much of classical, although I tend to prefer symphonies and various sonatas and concertos to opera or ballet. Contemporary Christian tends to leave me a bit cold, but you should hear John Michael Talbot singing Psalms. I love U2, Springsteen, Seger, Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell. I am a fan of James Taylor (coming to Davenport but - drat! - seats sold out and I couldn't afford them anyway.) I love Dylan - what a lyricist! - and Johnny Cash - what uncompromising honesty! I love the Grateful Dead, who penned maybe the most terrifying passage in the history of music lyrics:

Driving that train

High on cocaine;

Casey Jones you'd better. . .

And later:

He's on the wrong track and he's heading for you.

On the same theme, Neil Young's The Needle and the Damage Done is unforgettable.

I have loved the Stones since my teen years. Jimi Hendrix' genius with the guitar has yet to be matched. The Beatles have enriched my life enormously, both as a band and, afterward, as individuals. I can listen all day to the old crooners, too - Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett. My, oh my, what pipes!

This is about hearing. I think I may be losing mine. When I hired on at the place I work I had to take a hearing test. At that time my hearing loss in one ear was about 80%, but the other ear tested OK. I think now that the result would be different. My favorite word in conversation tends to be, "What?" Since our insurance covers audiology testing but not hearing aids one of our "save up for this" projects is a hearing aid for me.

While I was out driving today I listened to a CD of Beethoven's Violin Concerto, with Itzhak Perlman as the violin soloist. It's a beautiful piece of music. The second movement - the Larghetto - is one of the most beautiful, and saddest, passages ever written. Beethoven's deafness was already setting in by the time the Violin Concerto made its debut. I can't imagine what it would be like to be able to create such beauty, but never hear it.

So this is not "feel sorry for Rick" time. I hate that sort of thing. It is, instead, Rick has been richly blessed time.

Blessed - because I got to hear all of that music.

Blessed, because I have heard the music of my childrens voices.

Blessed, because I got to hear their laughs and their fun times and their arguments.

Blessed, because I got to know my grandkids and hear all of this happening again. "The more things change. . ." Genetics, y'know.

Blessed because I got to be outside on a Midwestern summer evening and hear the wind rustle - the huge variety of insect and bird sounds.

Blessed because I got to be outside on a Midwestern winter night and hear the sound of the wind roar. And when the wind is quiet, blessed to hear the sound of snowflakes hitting the ground.

Blessed to hear God's own music in a thunderstorm.

I'm told that, even in the desert, in that vast dry emptiness, there is something to hear, if you'll just be quiet and listen for it. (Need some help from desert folks on this one.)

Blessed to hear my wife pledge to be my spouse "'til death do us part."

Blessed to hear proclaimed on Easter, "Why seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen."

And blessed because maybe modern technology will allow me to keep right on hearing this wonderful concert.

But, a favor you can do for me, so that you'll know that you, too, are blessed. Step outside. Say nothing. Close your eyes. Just hear. Just listen. And know how blessed you are, how wonderful it all is, and get some small measure of how good God is.

Thanks for hanging out with me. Love your reactions.

St. Valentine's Day and birthdays and other survival stuff

2011-02-13T09:34:00.000-08:00

The survivalists think that survival involves building temporary shelters and finding edible leaves and bugs in the woods.

Wrong.

Survival is remembering your wife's birthday. I have no problem with that. I married a woman whose birthday is the day after St. Valentine's Day. This makes the birthday easy to remember, but it has one huge disadvantage. I have two days, back to back, that I had BETTER get right, or I run a serious risk of being dogmeat until our June 21 anniversary. And if I get that wrong. . .eek.

My second issue in this regard: I married a woman who squeezes a penny until Abraham Lincoln cries "Uncle!" As Mike Ditka said of George Halas, she "throws nickels around like they're manhole covers." In that regard we are very different, and God bless her for that. If I find a nickel and a penny in my pocket I wonder what I can buy for those six cents. She lets me have no cash.

So, I gotta get Valentine's Day and her birthday right. With no cash. Well, our next anniversary will be our 36th, so something is going very right. (Makes one wonder how a woman who is 29 years old can have a 36th wedding anniversary, doesn't it?) We tell some folks we're been married that long and they look at us like we're aliens that have just landed. I guess people just don't do that anymore.

Thirty-five years plus. Maybe we're entitled, finally, to have an opinion on what exactly love is. That first glow, that initial bloom, is nice and magical and wonderful. And it disappears. Oh, it comes back periodically, but a marriage can't be built just on that. Many a marriage was broken up because one partner decided that they were having that wonderful glow of novelty with someone else. That bloom can be a dangerous bloom.

Love is work. It isn't easy and wasn't meant to be.

Marriage is commitment, and there are times when the commitment is all you have. Make no mistake, the glow comes back, but it's different. In the meantime, you hang in there - because that's what you committed to do.

So here's what 35 years has been.

Thirty-five years when we both lost sleep over sick kids - when we both have had our turns spending the night at the hospital with those kids.

Thirty-five years when one of us stood by the other while that other was sick or injured. When I has open heart surgery in '92, my wife arrived at the hospital early in the morning of the day of the surgery. She stayed in the waiting room while a procedure that should have taken maybe three hours stretched into four - then five - the wait was interrupted only by the news that "Your husband is sicker than we knew" (OK DOC YOU WANNA TRANSLATE THAT!?!?). She didn't go home until I was moved from the Cardiac Care Unit to my regular room, days later.

When she had surgeries in '76 and in '93, I did likewise.

When I slipped and fell on ice last December, she waityed on me. She did whatever could be done to make me more comfortable - to help the healing process.

When she fell and broke her wrist, I was there to help with the day-to-day tasks we all take for granted. Showering and getting dressed is easy if you have two good arms. Having only one good arm makes it very difficult. I tried to do my part to make it easier.

Living with me hasn't always been a bowl of cherries. See "Alcoholism - impact on families." But there was this commitment thing, and she stuck through it.

There were times when our kids flirted with trouble, and times when they found it. But, we stuck with each other. There were days when we were upset with each other - but there was that commitment.

Commitment. If that's present, and if that's honored, the glow comes back, now more mature, now built on awareness of what it's all about.

I love you, Cindy. I always will - faithfully, commitedly. Forever and ever - not for as long as it's convenient, but until death us do part.

Happy Valentine's Day, Cindy. And happy 29th birthday again!

Relections from the storm

2011-02-05T18:29:00.000-08:00

The kindness of strangers - the unexpected, unobligated, undeserved kindness of people who don't even know you - is beautiful.

We had a snowstorm last week. Like you didn't know that. It was a monster storm. It stretched from Albuquerque to Maine. In my home town, the storm set a record for a snow event: over three days, almost 19" of snow. We tied the record of 16.7" over a 24-hour period, from Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday afternoon. This storm did, indeed, live up its hype.

The department of the company for which I work didn't close on Wednesday - we ARE a utility company, after all - but it might as well have. I'm not sure if anyone got there. If they did, I'm not sure why.

This is not to complain about the weather. We're midwesterners. We know that at some point God will sort of flick her finger and let us know that humanity is the master of nothing much. The only thing that we are master of is our reaction to the circumstance and to each other. And, about that "reaction to each other":

On Tuesday night I left work in downtown Davenport at about 4:15. I got to our residence in far northwest Davenport at about 5:30. It's normally about a 20 minute trip. Normally we don't get stuck at the intersection of 9th Street and Division. Normally we don't follow that by getting stuck at Division and Kimberly. On 9th Street we got through by my backing the car up almost a block, getting a running start toward Division, and praying that no one was coming up Division when we got there. Not recommended procedure, I know. At Kimberly and Division we were the recipient of the kindness of strangers. Two fellows got out of a pickup truck behind us and gave us a push that enabled us to get through the drift. They didn't have to do it. They could have gone around us and been on their way. But, they stopped. And helped.

I got to the house at about 5:30. It took until about 6:45 to get from the bottom of our driveway into our parking place. My son-in-law, Joe, showed up with a snowblower. We shoveled and plowed for the hour, in a snowstorm that was dumping an inch or two per hour, in a wind that blew the snow sideways and straight into our faces. (Yes, I am too old for that crap. My back is still advising me of this.) We finally got to the top of the drive - then got stuck in the parking lot.Shortly after a guy drove up in a larger vehicle. He said, "You've been stuck here about an hour?" We hadn't told him that. He then helped us push our car into our parking place. Two more acts of kindness came to us. One was from our neighbor who saw how stuck we were and called a friend who could help. That's how the guy knew we'd been there for an hour. The other was from that friend, who showed up despite having to drive through awful weather to get here. Neither of them had to do what they did. But they did.

Later that night we got to pass some kindness to a stranger. About 9:30 our doorbell rang. Normally at that time of night if our doorbell rings and we're not expecting anyone we're hesitant about answering. I'm not usually all that hospitable. I'm nice enough away from home (usually!) but at home I may as well have a sign on the front door: "If you're not expected and not invited and not related you're not welcome." We may let you in. I won't pay any attention to you. But on this occasion - in this blizzard - I opened the door. Outside was a young woman - I'm guessing mid-to-late 20s. In the corner of my eye I saw her car in a snowdrift. She only wanted a warm place, away from the elements, to make a call to get help with getting her car out. We gave her the warmest welcome we could. She was distraught. But, for a few minutes we offered warmth and shelter to a stranger who was in some trouble. By the way, how did she determine to ring our doorbell? Our lights were still on.

The next day - Wednesday - I didn't go to work. I didn't even try in the morning. The wind had created a drift about four feet high across the street from us. City plows created a drift about two feet high in front of both exits from our parking lot. Later that day the folks who clear our parking lot had done so. In the process they removed the city's snowdrifts. About 1:00 I tried to go to work. Northwest Boulevard was a sheet of ice. After some sliding and fishtailing at five miles per hour, I turned around - and got stuck again. Again, a stranger pushed me out.

We midwesterners can be, at times, a chilly bunch. Maybe it's not so much that we're chilly, but we place a lot of value on minding our own business. But in a crisis we do come through for each other. At least, in this crisis and in this place and for this family they did. I received help from unexpected quarters, and we passed that on. Our daughter and my wife and I helped neighbors by shoveling more walks than we needed to.

And kudos to the Davenport city crews who, I think, did pretty well considering the severity of the storm that they were digging out from.

Love to hear your reflections, your memeories. . .As always, love ya and thanks for hanging out with me for a few.

Hard Times

2011-01-15T21:22:00.000-08:00

Last night I watched most of a program on MSNBC. It's called Lockup, and it provides a glimpse into life in a number of American prisons. The one last night was about San Quentin. San Quentin is a true heavy hitter - a maximum-security adult joint. It brought back memories, because I used to work in just such a prison. I was a correctional officer, back in the early '80s, at the Joliet Correctional Center, on Collins Street in Joliet, Illinois.

The Joliet Correctional Center was the setting for the opening scenes of the movie The Blues Brothers. That movie may have been the best thing that happened to that prison. Before that movie, the east truck gate, situated in the middle of the wall that faces Collins Street, hadn't worked for years. Anything that had to be trucked in had to come through the west truck gate, on the back wall of the prison. The east gate was much easier to use, except for that issue of its not working. The movie people decided that they just HAD to have the east gate working, so they had it fixed. Everyone was happy. The state got part of its prison fixed, and saved thousands of dollars in the process. The movie people got their scene just the way they wanted it.

I didn't see The Blue Brothers until years after my career as a correctional officer was finished. When I did see it, I think I bored my wife with the guided tour of the place. I could still give such a tour from memory then. I still can. Max joints like Joliet change everyone who encounters them, whether inmate or staff. Inmates that are unskilled at being criminals sharpen those skills greatly in there. For those of us staffers - well, a lot of us come away having lost much of our faith in human nature. I came to the conclusion that a lot of those who wore the green - the officers - weren't very different from those who wore blue - the inmates. I still have, and probably always will have, a strong streak of the skeptic, even the cynic, in me. I think I always will. I may not always show it, but it's always there.

The tour. See that long building on the north wall? On the lower floor are the inmates' commissary, some storage. On the top floor is the Honor Dorm. Inmates with a long track record with no violent behavior may wind up in the Honor Dorm.

Those walls are limestone, about 20' high, I think, with coiled razor wire on top. Notice that on each corner there are towers; the nest on top of the towers where we worked were, I think, about 15' above the top of the wall. Someone once told me that they really didn't want the inmates to know what weaponry we had in the towers. That made no sense to me. I wanted to put a big sign on the outside of the towers: "Hey there Bad Dude, I have a .38, a 12-gauge with some buckshot and - check this out - some deer slugs. They'll tear you up! Lessee, what else - oh, yeah, check out this .30-.30, and lots of rounds for that, and oh yeah, CS gas and grenade laiunchers. Yep, all the stuff to ruin your day!"

Beside the Honor Dorm there's a big open space - The Yard. The yard is a place where lots and lost of inmates are out of their cellhouses at the same time. There may be three guards in the yard with maybe a couple of hundred bad guys. If you had to pick a place where violence was most likely to erupt, the yard would be one of them. The dining hall would be the other. There's a reason that there are three towers in sight - and aiming distance - of the yard.

A career as a correctional office may be years and years of boredom - nothing at all happening. Or, it may be that except for the minute that an inmate is carving you up. I'm all for boredom.

In the very middle of the prison is a small building that has its own tower. That's the North Segregation unit. The worst of the worst go there - inmates who would stab you in the heart in a second, if given the chance.

To the south and east of North Seg is the dining hall. The long building along the west wall has the laundry. On the second floor is a library. Most of the library consists of legal materials. A lot of the inmates are as familiar with the criminal codes and appellate procedures as any lawyer.

The residential buildings - OK, cellhouses - that house the vast majority of inmates are the East Cellhouse and the West Cellhouse. They are like wings along the front - south - side of the institution. East and West have different functions from each other - West has another seg unit and Protective Custody, along with permanent population. But, 'nuff of that for now.

I'm giving away nothing now. Some years back I saw in the newspapers that the Collins Street prison was closing. Funny thing - even when I worked there almost 30 years ago there were people who had lived in Joliet all their lives, who thought that Collins Street was already closed. It is now.

I think it no coincidence that my drinking reached its crisis points - the depths - when I worked at the place.

I think it no coincidence that I started treating my family like they were inmates - like they were just an extension of my work.

I am convinced I got out just in time.

But if you've ever been in a place and thought, "Man, if these walls could only talk. . ." I have been in such a place. And the walls may have done some talking. And I may have a story or two.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. Loved being with you, and I'd really love your reaction.

"Theology" "OK, but keep it light"

2010-12-04T07:49:00.000-08:00

I'll try.

The thing that prompted this bit of reflection was a column in a publication. It's a publication that is read almost exclusively by members of one denomination. The focal point of the article was the Apostles' Creed, and the point of the article was that the faith to which they adhere was the same as that expressed in the Apostles' Creed if you just tweak the Creed a little. The writer, I take it, was a newspaperman, not a theologian, so while he can be excused for not knowing this, I think he should have researched a little more thoroughly. He would have become aware of something:

He thinks he only tweaked a little here and there. But theologians and theological reflection live in the tweaks - in the seemingly minor details - and those tweaks undermined the very argument he was trying to make.

So, some thoughts on the theological task.

On philosophy and theology: there is an interrelation. Tertullian asked, "What do Athens and Jerusalem have to do with each other?" The answer is that theology has borrowed many philosophical terms, and has explored many fields that philosophy has. Ontology - what is the nature of existence? Descartes said that the principle he arrived at, about which he could not be deceived, was, "I think, therefore I am." Is he right, or is there an insurmountable difficulty in centering the nature of existence on the self? Epistemology - what does it mean to know? How do we come to know? For philosophy, a question may be, are we born as blank slates, as Hume and the Empiricists propose? If so, everything that we know comes only from our sense perception. Or are we with Kant, in maintaining that, while sense certainly has much to do with what we know, there is some knowledge - Kant would refer to it as a priori - that is truth independent of our sense perception?

While some terminology is shared between philosophy and theology, the latter field inquires into an area of ontology that philosophy (and science) cannot reach:

Why is there anything at all?

For the theologian, the question that Descartes tried to answer would have been moot. Existence is taken for granted, but how do you reconcile what science tells us with the creation stories?

How do we know? Can we receive saving knowledge only by revelation, or is there some knowledge at which we can arrive through reason and observation of what God has given in creation? Is there an analogy we can draw from existence - an analogia entis? The analogia entis was given by a prominent Protestant theologian as the reason he could not be Roman Catholic. For me, it's a large part of the reason that I am Roman Catholic.

Back to the tweaks, and a couple of illustrations of theology and its necessary "tweakiness" (if that's not a word it should be). There is a reason that, while Roman Catholics say the Nicene Creed, our Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters do not. The reason? (Talk about a tweak): one word. Filioque. The third portion of the Nicene Creed starts: "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son". "And the Son" in Latin is Filioque. Eastern Orthodoxy asks, does this not imply a subordination of one person in the Trinity to another?

Other tweaks were over, not one word, but one letter. "We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ. . .One in being with the Father." There was lengthy debate over one letter. "Homoiousios" translates as "bearing a strong resemblance to" but it does not posit an identity between Father and Son. The denomination to which this newspaper writer belongs maintains a homoiousios position. The word that won out in ancient times was homoousios.Notice one missing "i". Homoousios does present an identity between Father and Son ' "One in being with the Father." In the Greek that missing "i" is the letter "iota." So a missing iota made more than an iota of difference.

Tweaks, tweaks, tweaks. They make a difference. In the questions posed above I am not really a Cartesian - if I stub my toe on a rock I think I am not deceived about the existence of that rock. Epistemologically I tend to Kant, rather than Hume. My ontology is a bit of a hybrid - I believe in an intelligent design and Designer, and if that Designer wanted to use a Big Bang and billions of years, so be it. What are billions of years to an infinite Being?

I'm sorry - was I supposed to put the "Heavy Sledding Ahead" warning in place? ;)

Thanks for hanging out for a few! Love your company, and I'd love your reactions.

Advent

2010-11-30T18:45:00.000-08:00

Let all mortal flesh keep silence

And with fear and trembling stand.

Last Sunday began the Advent season. Advent, for Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and most Protestants has a twofold meaning, both related to the coming of Christ.

The first meaning is that this is a season of preparation for Christmas. We get ourselves ready for the observance of the birth of Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in being with the Father. He wasn't born on December 25 - not if angels appeared to shepherds in the fields that night, he wasn't; it's cold in those parts. No one really knows what the date of his birth was. But, December 25 works nicely. It was, in Roman times, the date of the feast of the Saturnalia. It was a time for a drunken orgy. The genius of Christianity has always been its ability to co-opt what it found in culture, and to turn what it found to the purposes of the faith. One of the rowdier days of the year became one of the holiest times of the year.

Besides, the shortest, darkest day of the year is December 21. Four days later, the light has started to return. "God from God, light from Light. . ." "And the light has shone in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

So we prepare. We heed the words of Jesus' forerunner, John the Baptist. Advent is one of the two great penitential seasons (Lent being the other.) "Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand!"

Ponder nothing earthly-minded

For with blessing in his hand. . .

We don't just prepare for Christmas during Advent. We are reminded anew of something we say at Mass on Sundays through the year:

Christ has died;

Christ is risen;

Christ will come again.

Christ will come again. We don't know when; even Jesus didn't know that. And we don't really know how, despite the claims of mssrs. LaHaye and Jenkins. But we are firm in the faith that he will come, at a time and in a way of His choosing.

From the readings from the First Sunday of Advent:

It is the hour for you to awake from sleep. For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed; the night is advanced, the day is at hand.

And:

So too, you must also be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.

And so we prepare, for the celebration of Jesus' first coming, and for His second coming. And we hope - we celebrate hope itself embodied and lived. I am wrestling much just now with demons and darknesses of my own. But it's Advent. Soon to come is the birth of the One who was the Living Witness that our demons do not win, and that the Darkness cannot overcome Him.

Christ our God to earth descended

Our full homage to demand.

May we all have a holy and blessed Advent.

Thank you for hanging out for a few!

Thanks be to God

2010-11-25T07:50:00.000-08:00

There are days that are just made for reflection. Thanksgiving is one such. Thus, reflection on things for which I'm thankful.

I am incredibly thankful that JESUS CHRIST IS LORD, TO THE GLORY OF GOD THE FATHER. Yes, I do mean to be shouting that. It still excites me.

I am thankful for my faith, the Catholic faith, that sustains me and encourages me. I didn't come to the Catholic faith until I was verging on middle age, so I have been able to maintain a view different from the view of a "cradle Catholic". I had been considering joining the Church at the 1993 Easter vigil. But, in September of 1992 I was advised that I had developed a severe stenosis (closing, for those of us who don't speak doctor) of the aortic valve, and would need open heart surgery. That rather violently accelerated the consideration process, so on September 26, 1992 I received the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, anointing of the sick, and my first Eucharist. Yep. Pretty accelerated.

I am constantly thankful for my wife, my best friend, my lover, the mom to our kids. She has put up with me for 35 years, and living with me has not always been a bowl of cherries. I am trying, though, and Cindy does let me know that I'm more trying on some days than on others. I have no doubt that marriage is a gift from God, and my wife most certainly has been such. I love you, Cindy, and eagerly look forward to our next 35 years.

I am thankful for our five kids. They've had their rough spots, and some of them are in such patches even now. I pray for you daily. In your successes I see my successes and your shortcomings, such as they are, are a reflection of my own. You will come through this. I did. I love you, and will go to my grave (not soon, I hope!) knowing that I couldn't have been prouder.

Thank you, God, for grandkids - 12 so far, to be 13 in February - that are way cooler than any Papa could ever ask for. I love you. Vanessa, Jasper, Olivia, Kylie, Meri, Logan, Jada, Jordan, Payton, (soon-to-be) Autumn, Derek, Jessilynn, Megan - thanks. Just for being you, just for being my grandkids, and for making my life more alive. I love you just the way you are.

I am incredibly glad for the family I grew up with - for parents that had a set of values that they lived by, and imparted to us. They're both gone, and I bless their memory every day. (And, yes, I think I am a Coats. Of everyone in the family, I think I bear the most resemblance to Uncle Kenny. IMO.) I am thankful for my sister, Sheri, who is most definitely one of my heroes.

I am thankful for having been able to reconnect with high school classmates. I apologize for not having known way back in 1971 how much you were to be treasured. I do so now. UT '71 ROCKS!!!! At the same time, I am saddened by the growing list of our classmates who are no longer with us. This earthly life is finite - but I cling to the hope and the thought that life itself is not finite. God is infinite.

I am thankful for our son-in-law, Chris, currently deployed. The count of days over there on this deployment has dropped into double digits. May those days pass quickly, and may you return home safe to your wife and your four kids.

I am thankful that I was able to serve, in the Navy.

To friends and coworkers, past and present, (you know who you are!), you make and have made my work life wonderfully rich and engaging. I hope I've returned some of that. You're all miracles to me.

I'm thankful for sobriety. I'm coming up on the 25th anniversary of my last drink. Thank you, God.

To everyone in this posting, to all Facebook friends, coworkers, classmates: I love you dearly. I wouldn't ever say that'cuz - well, you know - but I do.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow;

Praise God all creatures here below.

Praise God above, you heavenly hosts!

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost!

An addiction prism

2010-11-14T06:31:00.000-08:00

There are several ways in which addictions are categorized.. One such is a contrast between "process addictions" and "substance addictions".

Substance addictions are what we usually associate with the term "addiction". Someone who starts smoking will have a very difficult time stopping. The body becomes accustomed to functioning with the substance, and does not easily adapt to the absence of the chemical. Nicotine has a powerful narcotic effect. Some alcoholics take years to develop their addiction, and some others were addicted with the first drink. Thus, the caution: THE ONLY DRINK (OR SMOKE, OR YOU NAME IT) OVER WHICH YOU KNOW YOU HAVE FULL CONTROL IS THE FIRST ONE YOU EVER TAKE! After that, it's a gamble.

Just to define a term I've thrown around quite a bit on this blog: Addiction. A common definition, and one that works for my purposes, is continued or intensified use of a substance or process in the face of escalating negative consequences. Someone knows a friend or relative who dies of lung cancer. They witness the whole painful process of dying of this disease. Still, they won't quit. Their line: "I'll quit when I'm ready." Um - OK. It would be nice to buy some food, but I gotta buy my smokes. Or beers. Or crack. Yeah, I'm sorry about my asthmatic kid, as the parent lights up. But, I'll quit when I'm ready.

And where, exactly, is the line crossed between use and addiction? At the point where you are no longer free to use a substance or not use it.

So far, this note has been about substance addiction. The other type of addiction is process addiction. Substance addiction is addiction to what you use. Process addiction is addiction to what you do.

Gambling addiction is the most obvious example of process addiction of which I am aware.

Can you be addicted to shopping? (I leave to you to answer.)

Exercise? Here's an example that comes to mind. On nice days - sunny, maybe 55 or 60 degrees - you see the joggers out in their Spandex suits. They're keeping fit, and that's well and good. On not-so-nice days - 35 degrees, windy, a cold cold rain-snow mix - the exercise addicts are still out in those Spandex suits. Those only concerned with keeping fit are aware that the Y or other places may have an indoor track, or they can walk the mall. But, no. Process addiction dictates that they must jog on the same route, wearing the same thing, at the same time every day. Never mind that no doctor, no trainer, no exercise physiologist would dream of recommending this.

Process addiction. Smokers and drinkers that have not smoked or drank for a few days are past the physical craving. They're not past the process addiction, though.

Consider marijuana. Advocates for the recreational use of marijuana say that there is no known narcotic in marijuana, and this may be true. (Carcinogens are another matter, but come on, we haven't outlawed tobacco, have we?) So, you don't get addicted to the substance. You do get addicted to the routine of rolling the joint, of firing up that herb, of puffing. . .Think that's not a powerful pull? People who use often develop symptoms such as difficulty breathing and/or damage to nose and throat. Despite the absence of a narcotic, they can't quit, even in the face of these consequences. Process addiction.

As I have noted frequently before, I have no finger to point. This battle has also been mine. I am an alcoholic - a gratefully recovering one, but still alcoholic. So, I apologize if I come across as judgmental. I have no judgment to make of anyone else. My objective is to point out that the subject of addiction is a very complex one, and addicts are very complex people. Also, most of us are addicts, and if someone knows you well enough they can tell you what your addiction is.

And never forget that there's hope. If you're caught up in some form of addiction, or if someone you know is, never ever let go of that lifeline called Hope. It's real.

Thanks for hanging out for a few! I'd love to know your thoughts.

Gotta go. The 9:00 Mass is calling.

Reading

2010-11-07T19:03:00.000-08:00

One of my Facebook friends has a widget on her blog from GoodReads. I love the feature, and someday soon I will - I really will - figure out how to import that widget onto my blog. Meantime, what I'm reading, or have just read. . .

(really, I should ask Vanessa or Jasper how to do this. Grandkids, 13 and 11 years old, respectively. They could probably enlighten me. When I was 13 LBJ was in the White House, our deployed troops were in the 'Nam, and if you'd told me that every house had a computer in it, I'd have thought you crazy.)

ANYWHOOO. . .what I've just read: A book by Richard Elliott Friedman, entitled Who Wrote the Bible? At first glance the title seems a bit ambitious. The Bible is a collection of books, spanning about 2000 years. Asking "Who wrote the Bible?" is like asking "Who wrote the public library?" The question doesn't, on its surface, make any sense.

Friedman addresses a narrower topic. He starts by describing the four-source theory. It's not an hypothesis; it has found general acceptance among biblical scholars. In accepting that as his starting point, Friedman does nothing original. The theory states that the Torah - the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy - were not, in fact, composed by Moses. Those who would insist that they were written by Moses are left to explain how Moses wrote the passage describing his own death, or why there would be two different accounts of the creation, two different accounts of Noah's flood, or other seeming anomalies. The answer, supported by the internal patterns of the writing, is that at least two different writers were involved.

As it turns out, there were four identifiable patterns - four different writing styles, four different theological approaches: the Yahwist, the Elohist, the Priestly, and the Deuteronomist. Friedman presents compelling evidence of this theory. But, then he takes it a step further. He tries to identify the exact writer, or at least the time and place when this writer lived, and which group he would have been associated with. Here, while I found his evidence and arguments persuasive, I did not find them conclusive. Still and all, a good read, and I'd recommend it to anyone who is serious about study of the Hebrew scriptures.

WHAT I'M READING NOW: At most times I have my bookmark in three or four books. Right now, one of them is Newman 101, by Roderick Strange. Those who would gain an acquaintance of 19th-century British civilization would do well to make Newman's acquaintance. So would anyone who would understand modern Catholicism. He is one of the heavyweights in both arenas. Like many philosophers or theologians, he is, at times, not particularly accessible; one would do well to read something about him before trying to read him. I'm looking forward to the read.

A second book is by Peter Gay: My German Question. Gay was born in Germany in 1923 to a Jewish family. In 1933 Hitler ascended to power. Mr. Gay emigrated from Germany in 1939. He describes aspects of being a Jewish youth in Germany during the first six years of the Third Reich. I have always found studies of Hitler's Germany and Stalin's USSR fascinating. I'm constantly amazed at the willingness of the human animal, when it has unfettered control over any other group or individual, to exercise that control in the most cruel manner possible. See SLAVERY, AMERICAN. Or, NATIVE AMERICAN RESERVATION SYSTEM.

Love your thoughts. Love to know what you're reading. Thanks for hanging out for a few!

Vote. Please.

2010-11-01T16:36:00.000-07:00

I'm going to date myself here. I cast my first vote when I was 19. I voted - are you ready for this? - for Richard Nixon.

I haven't voted for any Republican for any office since then, and I'm not going to start tomorrow. There have been times when I truly couldn't stomach the Democrat. I wasn't going to vote for Jimmy Carter in 1980, but I wasn't going to throw my vote at Reagan, either. I voted for John Anderson that year. If I had to do it again, I might vote for Carter, or I might do exactly the same thing I did then. But Reagan, or any Republican? Never.

But that's not the thing I want to say in today's conversation, friends. What I do want to say:

Vote. (Got that?) VOTE!! K, try this:

VOTE!!!!!

Whether you are on the left side of the continuum, or on the right, please vote. Whether you agree with me or not, vote. Show up. Don't be one of those mental cowards who stay at home, then put a bumper sticker: "Don't blame me, I didn't vote for him." I'd much rather face a lifetime of living with a government I don't agree with than live with a government that was selected by your voice being shut out or my voice being silenced (good luck with that!).

In South Africa, when blacks were given the right to vote, they stood in line for hours to exercise this right. They knew well what a precious gift this is. And we can't get 30% out?

Get out there. Please.

VOTE!!!!!

Thanks for hanging out for a few! Love ya!

Bear

2010-10-28T05:10:00.000-07:00

No, not the Chicago Bears. A different Bear.

Bear - a Yorkie mix (OK, a little mutt, if you must) belonging to our youngest daughter, Jeanette, and her husband. Bear.

Our family has a way of giving ironic names of large critters to tiny dogs. Our second daughter, Becky, and her husband have two Yorkies (not mutts - purebreds.) The name of the first of them?

Cujo.

Last night I - the dogsitter of the moment - took their three dogs out to their kennel so they could do their business. Tank (nothing ironic in that name - you could saddle him) and Sierra did their job.

Bear did something he's done before. He managed to burrow his way out of the kennel. On one previous occasion he'd gotten out and gotten hit by a car. He was injured, obviously. In collisions between Yorkies and cars, cars win. But he recovered surprisingly well.

This time he wasn't so lucky. Burrowed out. Ran into the street. Got hit, and that was the end. The fortunate thing, if there is such, is that I don't think Bear knew what hit him, and he couldn't have suffered much, if at all.

Out third daughter, Kim, had gone out to get the dogs from the kennel, and found two. She brought them in, and said, "I have to look for Bear" - calmly, because this has happened before. Only, this time, she rounded the corner of the house just in time to see the collision. She returned a basket case. I went out, picked up the body and put it in a safe place. Stay in your holes, raccoons and possums. Bear will not be your meal.

I don't know what animals deserve or don't deserve. If 'gators or bears attack humans, do they deserve punishment? They're just being 'gators or bears, and they're doing what 'gators and bears do. But I know this, for sure: Bear, you didn't deserve to die in a puddle of your own blood on Division Street. Even if you didn't know what hit you.

After I finished caring for the carcass, I went to bed. I'm not a cryer, and I didn't cry over this. But I slept fitfully, if at all. The images kept coming back.

RIP Bear. There were lots of people who loved you, and two other dogs are now missing their little buddy.

Gotta go. Thanks for hanging out for a few.

Into each life some rain. . .

2010-10-23T06:16:00.000-07:00

Hi, friends!

This morning it rained. Lots. I was up at about 5:30. I went out to the front porch. And listened. And thought. . .

I have been dealing with stress lately. In fact, I don't think I've had a stress-free moment for weeks now. I'm not going into what, exactly, the stressors are, but it's one set in one place and another set in another place. The end result: there's no getting away. At times I have felt like I was about to split like a rotten nut.

I'm an introvert in the Jungian, Myers-Briggs Type Inventory sense. Being an introvert has its strong points. When confronted with the unknown an introvert tends to prefer to look to their own internal resources to deal with that unknown. MacGyver would be the introvert nonpareil. Introversion also has aspects that are neither good nor bad. Extroverts go to a party and, when it's done, say, "Where's the next party?" We introverts hate large parties. I characteristically try to make my escape from such events as soon as I gracefully can. If I have to plan one that's to my liking, it would be dinner with a few - a very few - close friends. When the party is done, we don't look for the next party. We look to go home. There is, at least, one part of being an introvert that puts us - at least, me - at a distinct disadvantage. We tend to internalize everything. Everything.

Had my life taken a different turn at a few points I could have been perfectly happy as a Trappist monk.

So, the rain. I went to the porch. The only sound was the rain and the occasional thunder. I sat on the porch. And in the silence, I found myself praying. Not for anything; I try not to pray like God's a short order cook: "I'd like two over easy, some toast, a side of bacon and some OJ and coffee, please. And take care of my stressors, will ya?" She knows what I need before I know it. But, my prayer, as it often is, was silence. And listening. Listening. I didn't consciously seek to be in that state, but I was.

And, for a few moments anyway, I had some truly stress-free time. For a few moments, anyway, it wasn't all about me and my problems, which are pretty petty, after all, in the grand scheme of things. For a few moments, anyway, I was as conscious as I have ever been that I and we are part of something and Someone much larger than we.

Be still, and know that I am God.

Thank you for that, God.

My life on my cube wall

2010-10-20T17:49:00.000-07:00

On my cube wall at work I have, among other things, two prayers. They're not just wall decoration to me. Significant parts of my life, of what's meaningful to me, is in those prayers. I say them often.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Those familiar with the origin of that prayer might guess I've had issues with alcoholism, and they'd be right. The prayer is strongly identified with Alcoholics Anonymous. Reinhold Niebuhr may have written it specifically for AA, and it's recited at most AA meetings (we wouldn't say it has to be said at all AA meetings, but that's because most of us alcoholics don't do rules well.) I don't know how much of my life I've wasted in frustration over being unable to change the unchangeable. I don't know how much I've ignored that in me which needed change, and was within my power to change. I do know that, even now, I occasionally find myself struggling with the difference.

When I wake up, I say an "Our Father", a "Hail Mary", and a "Glory Be" (yes, I am Catholic. You knew that.) Shortly after:

Step 1: Admitted I am powerless over alcohol, that my life had become unmanageable.

A tough step. We're not good at thinking ourselves powerless over anything. Frequently heard from alcoholics (and smokers): "I can quit anytime I want to. I'm just not ready yet." Yeah. Sure. There's a stage that recovering alcoholics and treatment professionals call the "want to want to quit" stage. There are those who don't even want to want to.

Step 2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

A tougher step. That sentence is loaded. We're not all that convinced that there is a "power greater than ourselves." A sign I used to keep around: "There is a God. You're not Him." And sanity? You're suggesting that we're insane? Wayulll. . .

A typical AA definition of insanity: repeat the same action. Expect a different result.

By the way, AA is not particular about how you label your Higher Power. I call mine God. For some who just cannot come to believe in a divinity, AA itself can be their higher power. You can use an old car radiator for your higher power if that works for you. The key concept: Whatever works.

But the first two of AA's steps are not on my cube at work, and they're not really a prayer. They're an acknowledgment. As one AA person observed in a meeting, for most of us church didn't lead us to sobriety. But for many of us sobriety led us to church.

The other prayer on my cube wall:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

This was the favorite prayer of one of my heroes in the faith, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. I remember a story told about him in his final months, while he was dying of cancer. Some 20 years or more earlier he'd attended a meeting. The discussion touched on an area of controversy in the Church. I've forgotten the specific issue. The meeting grew contentious, and obviously neither side had moved the other. Those 20 years later, Bernardin called one of the women who had been at that meeting, on the side opposed to him. He wanted to make sure that she knew he still thought of her as a sister in the faith and a valued member of the Body of Christ, despite their differences. She was not a prominent person. There was no reason he should even have remembered her. He not only remembered her, he reached out to her.

I think of Pope John Paul II - a little too autocratic to make my heroes list, but he's close - visiting the jail cell of the man who had tried to assassinate him in order to forgive. Mehmet Ali Agca never forgot that. Nor have many of us.

I think of others among my heroes in the faith. I came to Catholicism as an adult. I was drawn to the Catholicism of Thomas Merton (a huge influence on me), of Mother Theresa, of Pope John XXIII. I hope I find and emulate role models in all of the ones I've mentioned.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. . .

Left? Right? Thoughts on false categorization

2010-10-17T08:27:00.000-07:00

I think that the way one person perceives another's political stance depends as much on the stance of the perceiver as on the stance of the perceived.

Oh, geez, was that a convoluted sentence or what? Sorry! try again:

The way you see me depends as much on where you are as it depends on where I am.

A little better.

I consider myself a moderate liberal. A dear friend of mine, upon seeing that, noted that she sees me as being pretty hard left. I think it's more complex than that. I also think she'd agree that it's not quite so simple..

So, some left-right issues:

ABORTION: I am in line with my Catholic faith on this issue. I am opposed to abortion. This does not necessarily imply that I am in accord with all of the individual bishops on the matter. They seem to have quite the knack for making spectacles of themselves, to no useful end.

But, to say that I'm anti-abortion oversimplifies a complex issue. Just to recall one "But what if. . ." issue: But what if the pregnancy is the result of rape/incest? Could you allow for the possibility of abortion for that circumstance? The answer to this question would depend on the reason for your opposition to abortion. If your reason is that abortion is taking an innocent life, then you must oppose abortion even in such cases. The fact that the mother was raped, as horrible as it is, does not make the baby any less innocent. Catholicism, and most Catholics I know, would permit abortions for rape victims, but our reason for opposing abortion is different. That's too lengthy and involved a discussion for this space.

And, oh yeah, about rape: I think the penalty for a convicted rapist should be life. No parole. First offense. Few, if any, exceptions. Again, a lengthier discussion than this space allows. I may be biased - dad to 4 daughters, grandpa to 5 (soon to be 6) granddaughters - but don't most people know what "NO!!!!" means from the age of two or so?

So, am I left or am I right? Liberal or conservative?

MILITARY: I want a strong defense. I served - Navy, as you may have gathered. My son-in-law is in the Army, and deployed right now. Many in the family have served in the military. We've got all the branches except the Coast Guard covered. I don't want the U.S. to be the people who hung a sign on their fence: "Beware of dog", then thought that they didn't have to bother with the dog. That dog is noble and protects, even to the point of self-sacrifice. I am proud of my service - again, you may have gathered this - and I couldn't be prouder of my son-in-law.

I got a little irritated a few years ago.when a group of talk show hosts - all conservative - went on a tour to visit service people deployed in the Mideast. One of the big talkers said something like, "I just wanted to put on the uniform of my country. . ." Yeah, big talker. Funny thing, guy: When you were 18 or 19 and it was the time that you could serve, you were somewhere else. Chickenhawks: Cheney, Limbaugh, et al. Serving - really serving - involves a hell of a lot more than just putting on a uniform. Radio Man had no clue about that.

I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy.

I see by your outfit you are a cowboy too.

We see by our outfits that we are both cowboys.

If you get an outfit you can be a cowboy too!

So, am I left or am I right?

WAR AND PEACE: I'm opposed to preemptive war, and I have yet to hear a compelling rationale for our having gone into Iraq. Here, I'm pretty clearly on the left. I identify with Thomas Merton. I understand that some wars must be fought, but I can think of few wars which, when traced to their origins, made any sense.

INFRASTRUCTURE: I do think roads need built and repaired. I think bridges need maintained. I think schools should not be left to crumble with students still using them.

Is that left or right?

By the way, how many free market economists does it take to change a light bulb? None. Market forces will compel the bulb to change itself. (That was a joke, son.)

I think the government should pay their bills. That, I guess, makes me left. A definition of the Tea Party: the something for nothing crowd. The crowd that expects everyone else to lose benefits but "leave my Medicare alone."

To be sure, I do lean left. My position on the death penalty is in line with the Catholic pro-life position and the U.S. bishops (opposed; I won't repeat a previous blog post here). On immigrants, we have a responsibility to be more humane and human.And I do see the responsibility of society (the collective, if you must) toward the weakest, most vulnerable of its individuals. Mom and Dad may be deadbeats, meth dealers, whatever. This does not mean their kids deserve all the worst life has to offer. (Please note that I did not say that said useless parents had a right to raise those kids. Separate issue.) If you're going to be anti-abortion, you must come to terms with the fact that the kid you didn't want to abort deserves at least a fair chance at a decent life. There's no point in avoiding abortion if you're sentencing the baby to a short life, or to repeating the whole cycle. Again, all in line with my faith.

Labels are cheap. Labels are easy. Labels stop thought processes. Someone labeled Obama a Socialist, and by golly he was - even if he wasn't - because once the label is applied, no further thought is needed for some folks. But, it's always, always more complicated than that.

Am I left or am I right? Before answering, make sure you understand your own perspective. Maybe it's best just to ditch labeling altogether, but this is the Internet age.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. As always, I'd love your thoughts.

Thoughts About My Church

2010-10-04T17:33:00.000-07:00

Napoleon, speaking to a group of Roman Catholic church officials: "I will destroy your church!" (OK, OK, he said "Je detruirai votre eglise", but who's picky?) The response of Ercole Cardinal Consalvi, upon hearing this: "It won't happen. Our own bishops have been trying for 1000 years and haven't succeeded yet."

I am a Roman Catholic, and happy to be so. I find peace and contentment in my faith. I find an appeal to both my intellect, such as it is, and my emotions. At the level that matters, the Church does a great job of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. I love being what I am. I serve the Church in return, as best I can. I'm the Lector for the 5 PM Mass at St. Mary's, Davenport in April, July, and October. I am on the Parish Council for St. Mary's. Rarely does a day go by that I am not acutely aware of how blessed I am.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.

It's not as if the church has never had issues. During the tenth century the papacy was so corrupt that it was referred to as a "pornocracy." Later, during the time of Luther, the Pope was Alexander VI. Alexander had nine children by six different mothers. Yes, we've had our scandals, but we've been more open than most about bringing them out.

Heck, we even apologized to Galileo. It only took us about 300 years to get around to it.

So we have our issues. We always have. Jesus formed a perfect church, but then, in the only mistake he ever made, he went and let human beings into it. Dang.

I believe in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten, not made, one in being with the Father. . .

Yesterday I attended a Diocesan Planning meeting. The issue at hand was the changes that will need to be made to address the shortage of priests. The Davenport Diocese currently has 59 priests available for parish duty. In 10 short years, we project that we'll have 40. I don't know of many organizations that could well afford to lose a third of their best workers. The number of priests is dwindling, no doubt.

Yet one of the people at the meeting asked a question that should be asked: "What do we do to start planning for when we have too many priests?" Good question, and the questioner grasped something: The Catholic Church has survived 2000 years of cyclicality (if that's not a word it ought to be.) The pornocracy of the 10th century was followed by the Cistercians and Bernard of Clairvaux. The low points of the thirteenth century were followed by Francis of Assisi, St. Dominic, and the mendicant orders. And the time of Alexander VI was followed by St. Ignatius of Loyola and the Jesuits. The church has always found a way to live up to one of its mottoes: Semper Reformanda (always reforming).And, I am confident that there will be a time when the priest shortage will be a distant memory, then a footnote in the history books. Even now, there are regions in the world where there are more vocations to the priesthood than we know what to do with, and I'm told of a diocese in the U.S. - not one of the ginormous ones - that has 100 seminarians in the process.

A book I'd recommend: Graham Greene's The Power and The Glory. The society rejects the Catholic faith, in particular priestly celibacy. The priest is sought (and executed) because he observes that vow. The priest is called the "whiskey priest" - not a great recommendation - but he stays faithful to what he knows. On his death, another priest gets off the boat.The message: we'll just keep coming.

We'll just keep coming.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. . .I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. As always, I'd love your thoughts.

Ramblin' around

2010-09-25T13:23:00.000-07:00

This morning I went out and about for a bit.

I went to the Davenport Public Library to return some books. I had checked out two of them because I am having one of my periodic bouts of curiosity about my ancestry. I'm no genealogist, but I do know that my ancestry is largely German, and most of the Germans in this area are from the Schleswig-Holstein region.It's the part of Germany that is on the Denmark border. One of the books was a very small volume about the people who emigrated to the area as a result of the revolutionary activity in Schleswig-Holstein in 1848. They came here, speaking no English, and worked to build their lives here. Their kids were more fluent in English, but into the 1880s their newspaper was Der Demokrat. They were behind the founding of the Turners Clubs (Turnverein). It took three generations - or more - before the German was fully replaced by English. While this was happening, there were newspaper editorials decrying those who came to this country, took jobs, and didn't even bother learning English. Sound familiar?

After dropping the books at the Davenport Library I drove up Brady Street on the way to the Bettendorf Library. Great thing about a library card in the Quad Cities these days: with it, I can check books out from any public library and most college libraries in the area. The only holdout from the system is Augustana. God only knows what they think they can be so arrogant about. On Brady Street there was a sign that said "Garage Sale." Only, something else obscured part of the sign from my vision, so the sign looked like "rage sale." I wonder what units they'd sell rage in? "I'd like three of those little boxes of rage, please - I think someone's going to cut me off in traffic today." "OK, sir, but for just a little more you can have four of the big boxes of rage, and you can then be a member of the Tea Party!"

A little lesson in Realpolitik. Once someone is elected to office, their mission becomes to get reelected as many times as possible. Never mind "serving the people" or "getting rid of corruption." It's neither of those. It's, "I have power, and I mean to keep it." So, those who holler loudest about pork-barrel politics will be the biggest bearers of pork. (See "McConnell, Mitch".) My only question: do you think the Tea Partiers' candidates will be any different? Seriously? You see Rand Paul, when asked whether he would have voted for the civil rights measures in the '60s, waltz all around the question. A simple yes-or-no question, but the next day his people were accusing the interviewer of trapping him. Poor not-ready-for-prime-time Rand! Or you see Sharon Angle, when asked to explain one of her own comments, running from the reporter like someone had told her her shorts were on fire.

So what would you expect if you elect a lot of Tea Partiers? No more honesty - no cuts in budgets, just rearrangements - and a lot less smarts. Which may be what they really want.

I got to the Bettendorf Library. It's my favorite in the QCA - newer, cleaner, brighter than the others. You check out your books by scanning your card, then laying your books, CDs, whatever, on a table. You point to a screen to say whether you want a receipt. That's it.

One of the books I checked out is entitled 1688. Those familiar with English - or Western - history will recognize that as a seminal date - the year of the Glorious Revolution. I'm looking forward to the read.

So, thus goes my day on this cloudy, rainy, chilly late September day - one of those days when autumn shakes its wrinkled, crooked finger at us and says, "I'm back!"

Notre Dame-Stanford on now. It's refreshing to see two schools play whose athletes are expected to perform academically as well as athletically - whose students don't think "did that in high school" when they hear the word "graduate".

Differences between Notre Dame and Ohio State?

Notre Dame has class.

Notre Dame has classes.

And if She doesn't?

2010-09-13T18:37:00.000-07:00

The other day I read a status by someone who's happy that God blesses those who do Her will. I was happy for this person. She's a family member, dear to her family and dear to me.

But what if God doesn't? What if? (Maybe Heavy Sledding Coming Up warning.)

The Wisdom literature in the Hebrew Scriptures seems to follow two tracks, and these would seem to indicate two separate origins. The inspired Word is, like any other writing, influenced by surrounding cultures, The dominant cultures in the ancient Near East were the Egyptian and the Mesopotamian.

Egyptian society was dominated by the Nile. The Nile flooded periodically, predictably. It left fertile silt for growing crops. It made irrigation easy. Egyptian wisdom literature seemed to be written with an underlying assumption that life is good - the gods are not out to get you. If you do what they want you to do, they will do what you want them to do. They will, unfailingly, take care of you.

You can see this strain of thought in The Book of Proverbs."My child, eat honey, for it is good, and the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste. Know that wisdom is such to your soul; if you find it, you will find a future" (24:13-14). You can also see the Egyptian influence in the Song of Solomon, with its beautiful portrayal of sexual love.

Mesopotamian society was dominated by very different rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. They flooded too, but much less predictably than the Nile. In good years, the Euphrates (the Tigris was unusable for irrigation because it runs in a deep bed) flooded, and if the irrigation efforts were well coordinated a good crop could result. Other years, they would be all organized - only, no flooding. Other years, they would be organized, and the Euphrates would flood - and keep coming, and keep coming. In either case, mass starvation resulted.

Is it any wonder that the Mesopotamian societies thought the gods were out to get them? If you read the Mesopotamian creation account you see some similarities to the Genesis accounts (e.g., the seven-day time frame), but in the Mesopotamian accounts the creation of this world is a result of hatred - hatred toward the creation, warfare among the gods. In Genesis, the key differentiator is the phrase "and it was good." It's repeated like a drumbeat: "And it was good!" And forget that warfare among the gods. Genesis has only One.

At some point, the question arises as I asked earlier: "But what if you do everything God ever asks of you - and then bad things happen? What if you are God's obedient servant, yet the one thing you want most in life eludes you? What if you have what you wanted, and it's taken from you?" What if you're Job?

The Mesopotamian influence clearly shows in Job and in Ecclesiastes: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." And thus, the interplay between the two strands of thought: "If you do good, good will be done to you." "Fine - but what if not?" And here's the answer God gives Job: "Who do you think you are to even ask?"

Some years ago Rabbi Harold Kushner published a book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. He posited three traits commonly ascribed to God: he is all-loving, omniscient and omnipotent. Kushner took suffering as evidence that we have to give up one of the three traits. Kushner gave up on the omniscience; he regards the universe as being a largely random thing. I am not there. I would rather think that I lack some understanding, rather then think of God as less than all-knowing.

Long way to say this, I know, but in the end suffering, pain, loneliness are a mystery. My question to myself: Can I make them into a gift to God instead?

Love your thoughts. Thanks for hanging out!

Book burning

2010-09-09T19:33:00.000-07:00

I am thinking about that pastor in Florida who wants to burn the Q'uran. Then he doesn't want to burn it. Then he - well, he didn't really say he wouldn't, he just said he was suspending the event.

Please, Rev. Terry J. You've had your 15 mnutes of fame. You didn't deserve it, you've done nothing whatever to warrant it, but you've gotten it. Now get the hell off my stage. You're not worthy to have your 15 minutes extended, but you seem to want to milk it for all it's worth.

There are many considerations that would make this action wrong. First, as has been pointed out by many who would know, we have troops in a place that would be terribly offended, even to violence, if this happens. If you thought there was an uproar over Danish cartoons of Muhammad, just wait until you burn Islam's sacred text. Pal, this isn't an abstract to me. I have a son-in-law of whom I couldn't be prouder who is deployed in the Middle East. If you put him in any more danger than he's already in, then may you roast forever, you sorry simple egotistical b-----d.

Gee, did my temper run away from me for a minute?

There is another reason that I don't want this person - or anyone else - burning Q'uran. I am Catholic, but not a cradle Catholic. I didn't come to the Roman Catholic Church until adulthood - age 39, to be specific. I have been in other denominations. I don't name those other denominations much. My reticence about them derives from respect for them. I am what I am for a reason. But, to say I'm Catholic and that I'm not whatever it is I used to be could be taken as a denigration - at least an implicit one - of what I was. And I will not go there unless pushed.

The way you identify yourself spiritually is very close to the core of who you are. If your core is different from mine, then we each owe the other respect to that core. If we're grown up enough about it, we even owe each other a celebration of the other's core. It means everything to them.

So I am not Jewish. I do not want the Talmud burned. (I don't want Torah or the Tanakh burned, either, but those are part of the Christian holy texts.) Many have died martyr's deaths with the sh'mah - from Torah - on their lips: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One."

I am not Mormon. I do not want the Book of Mormon or the Doctrine and Covenants desecrated or burned. Although I do not regard these as sacred texts, millions do. Many of my family are among these, and they and their faith deserve my respect, and I hope they feel the same about my Catholic faith.

And I am not Muslim. I do not want Q'uran burned or otherwise harmed. It is the sacred book - near to the core of the values - for about a billion people. The huge majority are not the Wahhabi radicals; the nations with the largest population of Muslims are not even in the Middle East. You do Islam - and yourself - a disservice if you paint the entire Muslim world with one brush. You do not have to be a Muslim to respect their faith, values and lives.

And THAT'S why I have issues with the good reverend. Not that he would pay any attention.

As always, I'd love - and respect! - your thoughts. Thanks for hanging out for a few.

Rosh HaShana

2010-09-08T17:14:00.000-07:00

L'shanah tovah! To a good year!

Tonight at sundown starts Rosh HaShana. It's commonly called the Jewish New Year, but the observance of this New Year holiday bears no resemblance to the noisy Bacchanalia that marks December 31 (or the regrets that follow on January 1) or the explosive celebration of the Chinese New Year. Tonight at sundown it will be the first day of the month Tishri in the year 5771.

Tonight at sundown - in these parts, just a few moments from now - starts Rosh HaShanah. It begins a ten-day period of somber reflection, of the recognition of where we have gone wrong - of resolving to do better. Christians who observe Lent will recognize the parallels. After the ten days, the Days of Awe, comes Yom Kippur and the party of all parties. But for now - reflect, repent, resolve to do better.

In that spirit, my apologies. I apologize if, at any time, I have belittled you, made you feel less than the wonderful human being, worthy of all respect, that I think you are. To my family, I am sorry for the times that I have been either emotionally or physically absent when I was needed. To my coworkers, both inside and outside of my company, I deeply regret all the times I have let you down, not been or done as you expected. To my friends, I deeply value your friendship, and I am sorry for every instance in which I have disappointed.

On a personal level, the upcoming weeks are a somber time for me, absent any religious consideration. Between September 12 and October 2 are the anniversaries of my Mom's death, my Dad's birthday, my mother-in-law's death and my Dad's passing. I try very hard to remain approachable during these weeks, but I know that I can be a bit more waspish than usual, more distant, less communicative. Again, I apologize to you if this affects you.

"Happy Rosh HaShanah" would be a terribly inappropriate greeting for this day. More common is the phrase I opened with: L'Shanah tovah. That's a short version of "L'Shanah tovah tikatev v'taihatem": "May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year".

So, from me to any who are reading, my wish for you: L'Shanah tovah tikatev v'taihatem.

Peace, and thanks for hanging out for a few!

Is it just me -

2010-08-30T17:37:00.000-07:00

or did "normal" just. . .

I mean, we had a good start toward normal. My wife, my daughter Cheryl, and our grandkids Meri, 9, and Logan, 6, were at the dinner table. Nice. Normal. Then Logan finished eating - that only requires a bite or two or three - and came around to the laptop that was on the table.

Isn't this where "normal" should come in? Was it so very long ago that this would have prompted a question - "A laptop what??" But normal went and moved on me. Now everyone knows what we're referring to as a "laptop". Who doesn't? I mean, gee, Grandpa! Get with it!

The next thing that struck me as not normal was a bowling game on said laptop. The bowling ball had eyes, and those things on the end of the bowling alley looked like people instead of bowling pins. Well, they used to be people. Now they're zombies, the stars of the Zombie Bowl-a-Thon. I kid you not. Sometimes the bowling ball shoots down the lane loaded with bees from a hive, and the zombies do their best to dodge not just the ball but also the bees. Other times it's Disco Zombies - the bowling ball with the eyes zings toward dancing Zombies. Again, I kid you not.

I don't know what we'd have called more abnormal - that Logan went on playing his game like this was all in the course of things, or the look on Grandpa's face while watching all of this. The latter was a source of great amusement.

Normal? I don't even own a cell phone. You know, those things you carry around in a suitcase? The phone's roughly the size of Cincinnati, so you get a crane to lift it up to your ear, and if you tilt your head just right. . .Ah - you mean I could fit one in my shirt pocket? And it can get me on the Web? (OK, all normal people my age, all together now: "WHAT Web!?") No one's even surprised by the power of those devices. We all remember when the kind of computing power in a very ordinary cell phone now would have taken up several floors of a sizable building. (Geez, Papa! For REAL?!)

Actually, I am gradually moving toward getting cell service (help? someone? Verizon? Sprint? AT&T is not a candidate.) But, no texting. (Texting? What - oh, whatEVERRR!!!) And I really have little problem with the idea of kids on the Web - supervised!!! But, I do have concerns.

I'm reading, not for the first time, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Will a kid who's only used to Web summaries ever manage that gem?

In Faulkner's The Bear there's a sentence that runs, in my edition, to nine pages. When I first read that sentence, I noticed pages and paragraphs sliding by before I noticed that there were no periods, no question marks or exclamation marks. Would a Web addict, used to having thought cut into bite-sized pieces for easy digestion, even know what that was about?

Heaven help the Webophile who tries to tackle any stream-of-consciousness material by Joyce or Faulkner. No chance.

I'm all for kids on computers. Meri and Logan know more about this technology than I did when I was in my 30s, and Vanessa and Jasper, also grandkids, can run circles around me. They're older, you know - 13 and 11.

But am I the only one who thinks that "normal" must have taken a hard, skidding turn somewhere. . .back. . .there?

Tony and Albert, how could you?

2010-08-28T10:27:00.000-07:00

Today is the day Glenn Beck and his followers have their rally in Washington. I'm fine with that. The First Amendment, if it applies to any, must apply to all.

I do have a random observation or two. I noticed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Tony LaRussa and Albert Pujols will be among the attendees. The article quotes LaRussa as saying that he accepted the invitation only upon being assured that this would not be a thinly disguised political event. Yes, the naivete was flowing thick.

Maybe LaRussa didn't catch the bias here because he shares that bias. LaRussa is a rare breed: a vegetarian Republican who chooses to live in Northern California. He is an intelligent, sophisticated individual and, normally, not afraid to engage in critical, independent thought. I am just wondering what kind of assurances would convince him that an event featuring Glenn Beck and Sarah "I quit" Palin would not be political.

Maybe they can pull that off. I'll be interested to see. Not interested enough to pay attention while it's happening, though.

I was amused to hear Mr. Beck's spokesperson say that Beck had no idea - not a clue - that this was the date that Dr. King gave his address. Yeah, I believe that. And pigs are flying right outside my window. You got a permit for that spot, on this date, and you want to tell us it was all coincidence??? Pulll-eeeeze. . .

Many have discovered a truth: if you are going to lie, lie big, bold, loud and often. Sooner or later, some folks will start to believe it. Lincoln said "You can't fool all of the people all of the time," but modern propagandists - Limbaugh, Human Events, anybody on Fox News - have realized that you don't need to fool all of the people all of the time. You only need to fool 51% on occasion.

So you want people to think that Obama wasn't born in the United States? Speak that lie often enough and loudly enough, and some will buy it. Never mind that birth certificate and newspaper announcement the day after. (Birthers. Geez. Can you see me rolling my eyes?)

So you want people to think that Obama is Muslim? One answer is "His religious affiliation is and has been openly Christian. Submit your proof." My preferred answer: "So what if he is? We have a new test for eligibility for office now?" (and, by the way, refer to answer 1.) Another lie - told often and loud, and therefore gaining traction.

And this event won't be political? We'll wait and see. Beck has said that he'll deliver his address from a few steps lower than the spot where Dr. King spoke 47 years ago. That's at least one appropriate concession.

One other observation: Mr. Beck calls this rally "Restoring Honor." I never lost mine. Sorry about Mr. Beck's. I think it'll take more than one rally to restore his.

Rarely has such a mellifluous voice as Mr. Beck's delivered as much BS as his does.

For My Granddaughters

2010-08-15T08:36:00.000-07:00

Yes, you - Jada, Jessilynn, Kylie, Megan, Meri, Olivia, Vanessa (alphabetical order). You know who you are. Others may listen in. And, of course, you may chime in with praise of my great wisdom.

I have noticed that one of my granddaughters has given up on boys. She's 13. That's probably best. For now. And, since we are Catholic, convents are an option.

But - you'll probably say ix-nay on the convent thing. If your mothers had done that you wouldn't be here. So, maybe some things you should know.

Don't be surprised when you find that boys are incredibly immature and self-centered. Don't give up on them just because of that. Some grow out of it. Some don't. For boys at your age, it's impossible to tell which are which. Sometimes the great 14-year-old guy grows into the stubbornly selfish macho-acting-although-he-hasn't done-a-thing-to-earn it 18 year-old - you know, the gangsta wannabe. (Girls do exactly the same thing - at slightly different ages - but this note isn't about your relations with the girls.) So, don't be in any rush.

Mentally, emotionally, physically the guys are a little slower to mature than you are. If you're 13, don't expect any 13-year-old boy to be at the same level you're at. The difficulty - the ones who ARE at the same level of maturity as you are 15 or 16 - and those ones should not even be looking at a 13-year-old. This all does even out in the end - but it's kinda tough to deal with now, I know.

When CAN you tell when the guy gets over that "It's all about me stage"? Some never do, but by the early 20s the totally self-centered are pretty much set in their ways. Don't expect much change after that. If someone must have everything they want - can't take no" for an answer - can't discipline themselves - by the time they're 22, they won't be any less of a spoiled brat at 25, or at 35, or at 45.

See what I mean about not rushing? Have fun now - learn to relate now, but nothing serious before college. A lot - I mean a LOT - of college grads who have had lasting marriages met their partners in college. Don't let anybody put you in more of a hurry than you have to be or want to be.

And that boy that dumped you? Here's an exercise for you. Go outside on a 90+ degree day. Run a half-mile. Watch a drop of sweat run off your nose into the dust.

Any boy that would ditch a bundle of perfection that is my granddaughter isn't worth that drop of sweat in the mud.

I love you all dearly, and I am incredibly eager to see what great things you do with your lives.

The Clown of the Family

2010-08-07T18:56:00.000-07:00

I have used this space in the past to discuss some aspects of addiction and alcoholism, and I do so again tonight. It's a subject I know a lot more about than I ever wanted to know.

There is a certain - irony? - here. I have long since stopped treating my struggles with alcohol as a deep, dark secret. I have written about it here; I have spoken about it in church youth retreats (hear this message if you hear no other: THE ONLY DRINK YOU KNOW THAT YOU CAN CONTROL IS THE FIRST ONE YOU EVER TAKE. After that, all bets are off, unless you have an addict/alcoholic in your immediate family line. In that case, the bets are in, and the betting line is not in your favor.) I have given a safety training meeting at work on the subject, using my own experience as a backdrop.

If you hear a second message, hear this one: YOU CAN STOP! Genetics is not fate. At my low point I was living out of the back of a station wagon outside Ligonier, Pennsylvania. My family was back on Joliet. My last drink was December 7, 1985. I stopped and got my life back. You can, too.

Every time I have made presentations, or written something, my fondest hope is that everyone will say, "Had nothing to do with me. You bored me to tears." But, instead, every time, without fail, there has been someone who said, in one way or another, that what I had said or written has reached them. And I am very happy to know it. One of the things we learn in AA is that one of the important keys to us staying sober is helping someone else to do likewise. I and my family went through a lot. If I kept this among the secrets of my life, if I didn't try to help others in some way, our suffering would have been meaningless. (Suffering gains meaning by helping someone else? Wow - we're getting all philosophical here.) So, thanks for responding. Please know that you continue to be in my heart and in my prayer. And, as they used to say on TV, "Keep those cards and letters (and e-mails, and posting comments, and conversations) coming in, folks!" If I have said something that reached you - if you think that what I have to say is worthwhile at all - I'd love to know it.

In a previous posting I discussed the effect that addiction has on the families of the addict. We talked about the codependent and the addict, and how difficult it can be, once this family is in therapy, to determine who is in which role. This determination is made the more difficult by the frequent trading of roles between these two (usually the parents). We also discussed one of the types of children that come from such a family - the uber-conscientious, hyper-responsible people-pleasing overachiever. This person, usually but not always a firstborn, puts on the Supergirl mask so that outsiders would not guess about the family situation.

The second personality that often emerges from these situations is The Clown. The Clown has a great sense of humor, and is always ready to put on a show. He's always good for a laugh or a joke. This makes The Clown wonderfully popular, and The Clown seems to use humor to make his peace with life.

The Clown uses that sense of humor for something else, actually. This shows up when this family is in therapy. The discussion is getting intense and emotional. The family and the therapist are just about to confront something honestly (another key to recovery and healing is being honest with yourself) - right at that intense moment, The Clown decides to put on his show. The Clown's purpose is to distract the others from the subject at hand. The Clown has no intention of letting anyone know what this family's dynamic is.

It can be interesting to examine the interplay between the personality types. Often, Superkid is the firstborn. At some point, she will leave, usually at her earliest opportunity. Who, then, is going to care for everything at home? As often as not The Clown moves into that role.

It's easy to oversimplify this. There are Superkids and Clowns from families that are not touched by addiction. Just because you know such children, this does not mean there is addiction in the home. It just means that their personalities have formed this way. Children from addictive homes tend to have these traits on steroids - very intensely. But you don't want to get into amateur diagnostics. The human personality is a splendidly complex thing, to be loved and appreciated as a complex thing.

There's another personality type that often comes from these homes - The Lost Child - but that's for another day.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. I'd love your thoughts!

Humane to Humanity

2010-08-01T09:38:00.000-07:00

As you may have noticed (or maybe you didn't notice), I took a bit of a hiatus. As they said in Poltergeist (slight paraphrase): "He's baaa-aack." I do have a few topics in mind, but I have been thinking about how to approach them with the sensitivity the topics call for. Racism is an example - did you seriously think it's dead and gone? Someone may need to help me out with this, but is DWB still an offense that will get you pulled over? But, as I said, I'm still sifting my thoughts on this. I'm not sure anyone - and I stress ANYONE - can claim innocence on this, least of all me.

Someone, in response to some earlier comments of mine, posted an article from Human Events on Facebook. Their comment: "For those who don't know what's happening in Arizona." I guess that was me. I'm not giving away anything you couldn't tell, but here's my bias: if your source is Human Events, you have no source. In this instance, Human Events simply published the Arizona law as passed and signed, showing modifications. I guess the part we were supposed to see was where it said that the officers are to pay no attention whatever to the race of the person being investigated.

Please - this isn't comedy. It really says that. So, if an Arizona law enforcer pulls over an Anglo, and this person does not have their drivers license, I am eager to see said Anglo taken in for investigation of immigration status. Oh, you don't think so? I don't either. I think said Anglo would get a ticket for driving without a license, and would have a court date. And that's it and that's all.

If the person pulled over was Hispanic - same offense, just forgot their driver's license - and spoke with an accent, that's when the full-fledged "papers please" process starts. There is, you see, "reasonable suspicion."

And, if it turns out that the Anglo is a citizen of another country who has overstayed her visa, and that the Hispanic is a U.S. citizen whose family has been there since long before Caucasian eyes saw the place - "Gee, sorry for the inconvenience."

So, I saw the part about race not being a consideration. You believe that? There's a bridge I want to sell you.

In today's Quad City Times there's an article about deportations of people who have been here, sometimes for years, often involving separation of families. Someone responded to another earlier comment of mine by pointing out that there is a petition process for such a situation. The reality on the ground: That petition process may take years. The family may be separated by deportation while in mid-process. Once the deportation has occurred the petition may become a dead letter.

My position is, I realize, subject to distortion. I see the ongoing flood across the border as a significant problem, and I would have little problem with the building of the fence. (I do, however, take issue with those who would want to find the money to build the fence, but can't see their way to extending unemployment benefits.)

But, for someone who has been here 20 years, who have families, whose other family members are U.S. citizens, isn't there some more humane way to deal with their status?

I would hope and pray so.

Pain From Loss

2010-07-14T19:19:00.000-07:00

My first experience of loss occurred when I was in grade school. We had just moved from Davenport to East Moline. My school in East Moline was Hillcrest School. Moving was both exciting and scary. I had enjoyed my school time at Jefferson School in Davenport, but now I was going to be going to a new school where I was an unknown, where the social groups were already set. I think I took that move harder than I admitted to myself at the time.

The first person I encountered at my new school was the secretary. Time has cost me the memory of her name - was it Shirley? - and that saddens me greatly. She offered a warm welcome and the boost that I needed to start finding some excitement again.

Within a year she was dead.

I remember the visitation that children in our school went to, at a church in downtown Rock Island. I remember the day as being ,cloudy, threatening. Maybe that was just my mood. One of the brighter lights to that point in my life was gone.

Some years later I lost an aunt to heart disease. She was too young.

When I was 31 we lost our dad. He had two heart attacks within a month. When I am asked by a doctor if there's a history of heart disease in my family I answer, "Do you have a while?" When I was 43 we lost our mom. When Cindy was almost 31 she lost her dad. Just within the last couple of years Cindy's mom passed away.

We have lost more than one nephew under horrible circumstances.

Every one of these people were Mom - Dad - Grandma - Grandpa - Aunt - Son - Brother - Cousin - family - loved. The loss of every one of them caused unspeakable pain, a pain that seems like it will go on forever. Some time ago, a dear friend from work and I found ourselves experiencing family losses. The timing was eerie. I would lose someone, then within a month or so she would lose someone. Then she would lose someone else and, within a month, I'd lose someone else. It wasn't just the timing that was weird. It was that the relatives we lost were the same relatives: she lost a nephew, then I lost a nephew. She lost a mother-in-law, then I lost a mother-in-law. . .We went through about three exchanges like that. She and I agreed that we were funeralled out. No more! We promised each other!

It didn't work. My thinking about the subject of loss was triggered by the death of a sister-in-law, my wife's second-oldest sister, early Tuesday morning. She was only 62. It was sudden and unexpected, a complete shock. I can't say I knew her well. By the time Cindy and I married she was already married and had been living in Washington state for some years, but Cindy and the younger sisters looked up to her. In a family of 13 kids, she was the (rare!) quiet one, but she had her way of making her presence known. She was a mom to ten, one of whom has passed away. The other nine are all solid, responsible citizens. This loss hurts my wife far more than it hurts me. But it does hurt as the loss of any good person should hurt. Great wife to Bob, great mom to all her kids, great human being, a person who lived by her faith and found meaning in it. You can't ask more than that.

So, again, we experience the pain of loss. I've been through this enough times to know how this works. At first, the numbness, the shock. Then, the pain that becomes nearly unbearable, and seems endless. Someone, trying to be helpful, will say, "I know how you feel." No, no you don't. "God must have wanted another angel, so God took. . ." What kind of God do you believe in? I want no part of such a God! But then there's the true friend, the one that knows that what's really needed is for them to be there. Not to say anything - just be there. The touch of that hand means more than volumes of words.

Over time the pain does ease, and eventually you stop thinking about this person constantly. But, the agony never completely goes away. Some occasion will come up - a holiday will trigger a memory, a birthday will remind you, an anniversary brings back THAT day - and the pain is as bad as ever. It's hard to know this when you're in the middle of it, but over time the recurrences of the pain will become less frequent, the incidents will be milder. You may find your faith and your belief in the next life is renewed and more real than ever before. And, you can get to the point that, while there is pain, you can celebrate this person. The joy of having had the privilege of knowing them overrides the pain of losing them. And, hope refreshes. But, you never, ever forget, and that's good. We're human. We have memory.

As always, I'd love your thoughts. Thanks for hanging out for a few.

They don't call me Eddie Crocker. . .

2010-07-09T18:54:00.000-07:00

Something's burning.

Something's burning,

And I think it's. . .

The pork chops.

This evening I was asked to help cook something. Horrors.

My history with pots, pans, stoves, ovens has not been a great one. Odd, because when I was a kid I took some interest in baking. (Yeah, I had my quirks.) I didn't do all that badly. I don't remember anybody running for the bathroom doubled over. I had no idea how much help my mother was in these endeavors. I was able to make my offerings with pride.

from some Hardee's commercials: "Without us, some guys would starve."

Soldiers who gathered in England in preparation for the D-Day invasion recalled their diet: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, seven days a week, three meals a day. Many of these soldiers, for the rest of their lives, could not stand the sight of peanut butter.

I might have met that fate myself, and not because of any pending invasion, had I not met and married someone who could cook. We had four daughters, and they, for the most part, learned the fine art from their mom. Thank goodness!

On one occasion, when my wife was away due to her father's illness, I tried to cook some pork chops on the grill for our kids. I knew that I was supposed to put some foil on the grill. I didn't know that it mattered whether the shiny side was up or down. I managed to turn a bunch or perfectly good pork chops into hockey pucks. Our son threw one on the floor. It broke - the pork chop, I mean. Not the floor, although the outcome of the floor vs. chop conflict was in doubt.

I've turned chicken noodle soup into something - fried.

I've tried to boil water. Burned it.

So, imagine my terror when my wife called to me tonight. She was making something for our family reunion tomorrow. "Dear?" I walk fearfully toward the kitchen. "Yes?"

"I need you to stir these noodles until they come back to a boil." Then a pause. "Can you DO that??"

OH NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Well, I did, and no disaster has occurred yet. What - you mean you can overcook those? Oh - BRB.

I'll be at the Iowa State Fair, working our pavilion from 4-8 PM on August 19, and from 8 AM-12 noon on August 20. So, which Applebee's? Yeah, it's the Embassy Suites I'll be staying at. No, I'm not going to try it myself. I'm into creating ashes, not eating them.

The Fourth of July

2010-07-03T21:49:00.000-07:00

It's July 3, as I write. I can hear on the nearby streets the explosions of various devices. I'm not out there because after lo, these many years, I have concluded that my fingers are my friends and I'd like to keep them attached.

A little farther away, on the Mississippi River, the officially sanctioned fireworks display is being held. The fireworks are launched from barges on the Mississippi, and I hear that the Quad City Symphony was playing. I wasn't there, either. The older I get the more I hate crowds unless it's Wrigley Field and someone else is driving. And parking.

It's July 3. One day before the date we celebrate the beginning of our independence and two days prior to the celebration of a truly blessed event - my birthday. What!? - you mean all those fireworks and all that celebration isn't about ME!!??

Gee, all of that to get to the topic of the music. I would not be surprised if the Symphony played Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture tonight. Thanks to the Boston Pops, that piece is standard fare for this celebration. Am I the only one that finds it odd that we use music by a Russian composer, written in celebration of the Russian army's defeat of the French army to observe the independence of the United States? By most accounts Tchaikovsky didn't even like that piece of music very much.

The closing hymn for the 5:00 Mass at St. Mary's tonight was America, the Beautiful. The lyrics were written by Katharine Lee Bates. Ms. Bates was an English professor at Wellesley who in the summer of 1893 journeyed across the country. She went to Colorado Springs to teach a summer session. She was moved by the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the "White City" ("thine alabaster cities gleam") and by the seemingly endless wheat fields of Kansas. The lyrics began to come together for her when she saw the view from the summit of Pike's Peak.

It has been suggested that America, the Beautiful should be our national anthem. I'd be all for that. As I write this I have, on my speakers, a rendition by the United States Navy Band and Sea Chanters. I've listened to versions by Lee Ann Rimes, by Willie Nelson and a number of friends, by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. My absolute favorite version remains the one by Ray Charles.

I can't help but notice that for every one of these artists this song becomes their own song.

And I can't help but notice that, for every one of us, America becomes our own country. And isn't that the beauty of it? We may not agree on everything. We may tire of the divisions while overlooking the freedom we have to have those divisions. It's messy, true - but I feel incredibly blessed to have been born in such a place. Thank you, God!

O beautiful for heroes proved

In liberating strife

Who more than self their country loved

And mercy more than life.

America! America!

May God thy gold refine

Till all success be nobleness

And every gain divine!

Thanks for hanging out for a few. Have a blessed Fourth!

Prayer and the pray-er

2010-06-27T08:56:00.000-07:00

A theme that emerges a lot from my friends is that they would like their friends to pray for them, for some issue. It's not surprising. The people I hang with tend to be people with deep, abiding faith, and they know that I am such, also. And, so, I type on their post that I will pray for them.

Isn't typing easy?

Prayer, on the other hand. . .

Some examples: I pray for Kim and her daughter who have some difficult health issues. That prayer would be so empty, but I'm a dad to five, and I know the sleepless nights and endless worry. I can enter into their suffering, because I can identify. Typing is easy, but reminding myself of what that suffering was like, and thus pulling the prayer up from the depths of my soul, is something else again.

I pray for a former third-shift colleague who has battled some of the same health issues that I do, and has had a really (REALLY) significant new issue. Having been through much of that, I can pray for her from the depths. I hope you know that, even if I'm not with you, Pam, I am with you.

I pray for a niece (OK, technically a - niece-in-law?) who has had one child, is awaiting their second, and has had great difficulties each time. I've never been pregnant (how's THAT for stating the obvious?) but my wife and some daughters have experienced difficult pregnancies. I've never met Leah - I hope to some day - but I can pray from the depths because I've seen some of the problems of pregnancy up close and personal.

I have prayed for someone who works on the same program as I. Actually, I've prayed for her husband, who injured himself playing basketball. They thought it was a broken ankle. It wasn't, apparently, and we're glad. But, I tore a calf muscle once, and being immobile is pure misery. So, I pray for him, because of the misery. I pray for her, because my being immobile put those around me in misery.I'm guessing. . .

And I have prayed for my own family, in countless ways and for countless reasons. For myself, usually more than once a day, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

I would not suggest that a person can't pray for another's issues unless they have themselves gone through those same issues. That would be nonsense. I don't see God keeping a reject file of prayer, and those having troubles would appreciate all prayer from anyone.

As I look through this list, doesn't it seem that it's a shopping list? "God, I want this, and that, and - no, not that grape jam, I want the strawberry preserves!" And, maybe if our whole prayer is "God, I want the strawberry preserves!" we don't hear God saying, "My plan is grape jam. Sorry!" Or - "The strawberry preserves were to be your surprise later."

A second method of prayer has been a blessing to me. It's not "I want, I want, I want. . ." I still do the prayer of supplication, because I believe in the power of that prayer, and I love the awesome God in whom I believe. But, it is so easy for that to become a one-way conversation. So the other method of prayer I've found valuable:

Just be quiet. Listen. Rest in the presence of that awesome, loving God.

This is, in my experience, a far more difficult prayer to offer. You create a quiet space. And then, quietly enjoy His presence. But then your own mind keeps making its own noise. Try it sometime. Just sit quietly, even for five minutes. It won't take that long for your own thoughts to pop up, seemingly out of nowhere, and you can't just shove them back into place. (The secret here: DON'T fight those thoughts. Just become an observer as they float by.)

You may find it useful to enter into this prayer by a slow, meditative reading of a passage of Scripture. This should not be a long passage - a chapter is too much - and you read it until some word or phrase catches your attention. Focus on that. Turn it over and over in your mind. Let it become your prayer word.

Much has been written about this contemplative type of prayer, or centering prayer, and lectio divina ("divine reading"), and I won't try to capture it all. It has meant much to me.

As always, thanks for hanging with me for a few. I'd love your thoughts! I appreciate all of the responses to the posts, whether you agree or not. It helps me to know I'm not sailing these off into thin air.

Truly Random Observations and Musings. . .

2010-06-25T17:22:00.000-07:00

. . .leading to no point in particular, but hey. . .

THIRD SHIFT: In one job or another I've been on third shift for seven or eight years. Those days are now done. I think. For the last year or so that I was on third we could watch TV. A little. Well. . .Not that I ever would. Nope. Not me. (Hmph.) During third shift by about three in the morning you realize that not only are your life and schedule all backward, but you're no longer even sure what they're backward from. You've either lost a day or jumped ahead one. You're so tired that your eyelids feel like boards and your face feels like drywall. Right when you're at your absolute worst the ad comes on the television. Lindsay Wagner, whose voice sounds like she just got up from a sound sleep - deep, thick, syrupy - talks about the wonders of that Sleep Number bed.It's just what a third-shifter needs to hear at that time of night. By the end of the ad we wouldn't even need a Sleep Number bed. Just a blanky on the floor and a coat for a pillow would do. Or the ad comes on for the sleep aid: "Only take ___ if you have eight hours to devote to sleep." You can only whimper "OK?!"

By the way, if you're trying to watch your weight, third shift is the absolute worst thing that could happen to you. Just sayin'.

A box of donuts almost got me killed one afternoon at work.

I got an e-mail from my U.S. Senator, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa.) Haven't heard from the man for five years, but now he's up for reelection, so - well, you know. My computer labeled it "junk."

Smart 'puter!

I now work in the energy efficiency department for a midwestern utility. My job mostly consist of looking at a lot of rows of a lot of numbers. There are many people who do much more important stuff than I do in this arena. I'm proud and honored to have some as friends, Facebook or no Facebook. It amazes me that a small saving in kilowatt hours leads to a huge difference in the amount of noxious stuff that gets poured into the atmosphere.

I like that.

'Cuz I like breathing and stuff. Yes - breathing is good.(Don't tell the smokers that.)

ON MSN.COM: "Shipwreck discovered in Lake Michigan." So that's where the Cubs went.

TALK ABOUT BADLY TIMED COMMERCIALS. . .They run Viagra and Cialis commercials in prime time? Seriously? I wonder how many parents have had to have THE talk earlier than they wanted to because. . ."Mommy, that man has ED. What's that?" "OK I know you're six, but sit down. . ."

Well, enough random musings from me. I'd love your reactions.

As always, thanks for hanging out for a few!

Hello, young lovers

2010-06-20T17:25:00.000-07:00

On June 21, 2010, Cindy and I will celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary.

Happy anniversary, dear. It wasn't until we'd been married 25 years that we really began to know what this means: I love you. And I love you now more than I ever have.

I've been around long enough to have observed this first point: Most relationships end badly. They do. And that's probably a good thing. It's a good thing to be sure that you're matched up with THE ONE before committing yourself permanently. Men and women being men and women, and hormones being hormones (OK, no one reading this needs THAT talk, do you?) carries the implication that you'll burn through more than one relationship before getting to THE ONE. That's all well and good.

I've been around long enough - in a 35-year-so-far marriage, after all - to know the second point: Relationships aren't easy. They are hard work. The initial glow doesn't last forever. The commitment does. In any relationship there will be times when you'll think that the only reason you're staying together is that commitment. We've worked through those times, Cindy and I. And now we have our 35 years together.

There will be mornings when you wake up, look at each other and say, "Who ARE you?" (Alternative version: "Lord, what did I get myself into?") There will be times when you don't even like each other much. But, if the commitment and vows are central for you you will work through those times.

There will be long hours and days spent in the hospital when the other is sick or hurt. There will be nights when the two of you are deciding who will spend tonight in the hospital with your sick child.

There will come the time when you realize that you're not as young as you were. Cindy married a healthy Navy guy. Now she's got a diabetic who has had open heart surgery and occasional difficulty getting around. We both know what the words meant, though: "For richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health. . ." Believe it or not, "in sickness" is usually easier than "in health." (I don't know how this happened, but Cindy stopped aging some time ago. She's still 30. I, on the other hand. . .)

There will be the times when you are responsible for kids, which carries agonies of its own. Then will come the time when you're not responsible any more, and the pain is different, but there.

There's a lot of garbage to carry out - a lot of coupon-clipping and shopping the off-brands - a lot of dishes to be done - a lot of choices to be made when each of you needs to buy something, but you can only afford one of the items. It's difficult sometimes to compromise on what you want without compromising who you are. As you get older you get the knack. Trust me - we've worked through this too.

So, we've worked through all of this, and now we have 35 years. I'm only beginning to learn what I need to learn. But I know this:

I love you, Cindy. I can't wait to see what the next 35 years bring.

Grow old with me;
The best is yet to be -
the last of life, for which the first was made.

Dad's Day

2010-06-19T22:11:00.000-07:00

I was six when this happened. We lived in an old house at 918 W. 6th Street in Davenport. There's not even a house there any more and the current use of that lot is more constructive than the existence of that house would be. It had two apartments upstairs that shared a bathroom. There was one apartment downstairs. If you had the downstairs apartment you didn't have to share a bathroom and you even had a shower in the basement. Later we moved into the downstairs apartment. We were living large, indeed!

When I was six I went to Jefferson School in Davenport. I was a first-grader, and therefore mature enough to be in the throes of my first crush. It was for Miss Takano, our teacher. She was from Hawaii, and I took to all things Hawaiian. I must have looked awfully silly, using a bath towel as a substitute for a grass skirt, hula-ing my way around the house. Yeah - "cute" my a**. . .If anyone has pictures, please burn them.

On December 24, during that six-year-old first-grade year, we awoke to find that the door to one of our rooms wouldn't open. Try as we might, we couldn't budge that door. We were sure that Dad could open it, but there was a mystery too: Dad was nowhere to be found. It didn't occur to me that it might not be a coincidence that Dad was missing and there was a door jammed shut.

The next morning, Christmas morning, when we woke up Dad had magically reappeared. And, lo and behold, the door could be opened. When we did open it, we saw something new. There was a piece of plywood. It seemed monstrous to me, but I think it was really about four-by-six feet. Maybe 5x8. Most of the wood was painted grassy green. There were gray-silver streets painted onto it. There were small buildings attached; Dad had built a little village on that board. There were railroad crossing signals where railroad tracks crossed the street. Yes, railroad tracks, from the model electric train that was also on the board.

To this day I have a thing about trains, and if there's a childhood hobby I'd take up again if I could, it would be model railroading.

Another experience Dad shared with me also involved trains. Many years ago a company in the Quad Cities - I do not remember who - sold packages for Iowa Hawkeye football games. The package included a round-trip train ticket from the Rock Island depot almost to the gates of Kinnick Stadium. It also included game tickets and a box lunch. We made that trip in two consecutive years. The Hawks lost both times. I am no longer a fan of the Hawkeyes (I don't hate them; I pay no attention to them.) I am still a fan of the memory. And there's still that thing about trains.

What follows is my opinion, based on nothing more than my observation. Of the four types of parent-child relationships it seems to me that the relations that cross gender lines are the easiest to understand and maintain. Not that these are easy in any absolute sense. Relationships, no matter the nature, are complex and require hard work. But, I think that fathers and daughters, and mothers and sons, understand each other comparatively well. Mother-daughter relationships can be a bit more difficult, but the hardest to understand of all of them may be the father-son relationship. I have no idea why. I can't substantiate that by research. My feelings won't be hurt if you tell me I'm wrong, or that your experience is different. But my Dad and I were certainly no exception. Neither are my son and I. I love both my Dad and my son dearly. We do try, and most of us get to where we should be. I just think the dynamics of that are really tough to grasp. It's the stuff of The Brothers Karamazov and Field of Dreams, not to mention the greatest of all short stories, the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

Dad never claimed allegiance to either political party. "Vote for the man, not the party," he'd say. But when he voted for the man it was Landon, Willkie, Dewey, Dewey, Ike. . .The one exception was in '64. He voted for LBJ because he couldn't stand Goldwater. Dad later regretted this. I voted for a Republican - Nixon - with my first vote for President. I have not since voted for any Republican. For anything. At any level. I don't think Dad put much of a stamp on me there!

There were other arenas in which Dad most definitely left his mark. Dad read the newspaper every day. He was a tool-and-die maker who could teach some civics teachers a thing or two. I skim - and sometimes more - six or seven papers a day. Dad would have done that, too, if he'd had the internet. We're both news consumers of the first order.

We both loved baseball first, with football a close second. Basketball and hockey? Something to fill time between the real sports. We both had a firm grasp of the history of the game. Ted Williams hit .406 with 37 home runs in 1941. Lefty Grove was 31-4 in 1931. Joe DiMaggio had his 56-game hitting streak the same year that Williams hit .406. The highest single-season batting average in the modern era was by Rogers Hornsby (.424). These days we would be astonished if someone hit .367 over a single season. Ty Cobb hit that over a 20-year career. These are things that Dad and I would both know off the top of our head.

We both valued concepts like work. . .duty. . .fidelity. . .honor.

We lost Dad in 1984. Our daughter Cheryl was eight; Becky was six. None of the others were old enough to have any real memory of him. I think of him frequently, and I miss him every time I do. In a very real sense I carry him with me still - with every step, in every gesture, with every glance.

This Father's Day, for those who still have your father with you, tell him you love him. Try to tell him how much you appreciate him. He may get all gruff and act like he doesn't need all that. He does. For those who have lost their father, the pain of loss never goes away. Your hurt is my hurt too. In the end the sweetness of the memories and the gratitude for their life and for what they shared with you will win out.

Thanks, Dad. I love you.

And thanks to those who've read this for hanging with me for a few. Love to know what you think.

Doubt and Faith

2010-06-17T16:48:00.000-07:00

The story is told of two Jewish men from New York. They met in the street one afternoon. Their discussion turned to the existence or non-existence of a supreme being. One of the men says, "With all of the suffering in the world - with all of the kids in Africa and Haiti and even our own Appalachian region living on the edge of starvation - with heart disease and cancer being the killers they are, and Alzheimer's there for those unlucky enough to live into it - with mining disasters that take parents from children and spouses from spouses - how could it be possible that any God exists?"

The second man replies, "I lost my family in the Holocaust." Nothing more needed saying. If there is a God, where was He? How could we take seriously a God who so deserts His Chosen People?

Just then one of the men looks at his watch. "It's almost 3!" he exclaims. And the other replies, "Oh - we gotta hurry. We'll be late for prayers!"

I do frequently get myself caught up in the same sort of attitude - finding myself certain that no loving God could permit what seems to be going on, but then it's time for prayer.

Doubt and faith. Faith and doubt. I'm not sure that it's possible to have a meaningful, life-defining and life-changing faith unless you have first wrestled with the other side. Faith that is there only because of upbringing, because of cultural conditioning, is a start, and we'll take it as a start. But it's only a start. Mature faith, a faith to grow by, is faith that has had an honest encounter with its flip side, doubt.

If you are not familiar with Elie Wiesel's work you should become so. Wiesel survived the Nazi camps. His family didn't. He was in the same camp as his father. Wiesel went to sleep one night. His father was in a nearby bunk. When Wiesel awoke the next morning someone else was in his father's bunk. That's how Wiesel found out his father had passed away. In another passage Wiesel describes the hanging of another prisoner, a prisoner who had committed a terrible offense. Well, as terrible an offense as a ten-year-old could manage. Because of the boy's small size he was strangling for quite some time before death mercifully intervened.

After the war Wiesel moved to Paris to live with relatives.This boy, all of seventeen, recounts looking into a mirror, and seeing only a corpse looking back.

And the question, always the question: God, where were you? Were you busy? Had a better offer? Wiesel did come to a point where his faith and his Jewish tradition took on renewed meaning for him. But that question - that one question - can it ever go away?

Do you think that Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu - yes, Archbishop Tutu - went through their periods of doubt? How could they not?

And where was God in that June twenty-six years ago when I was living out of the back of my station wagon by a stream in western Pennsylvania, with my wife and kids in a perfectly good home 700 miles away? There was that night when I remember drinking two beers out of a case. I woke up the next day in my car, having no clue how I'd gotten there. I looked for what remained of the case of beer after the two cans I'd remembered drinking, and found out that I'd gone through the case. I remembered nothing after the first two. Just FYI: that's called a blackout. A blackout is a big red flashing warning sign that you're in trouble. Deep.

I had no right asking the "Where were you, God?" question. My damage was self-inflicted. I was the perp. But my wife and kids certainly could have been asking.

Every single one of the people I've described found their faith after - or during - their fight with doubt. Me too.

Why doesn't God just fix everything? In When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Rabbi Abraham Heschel describes three characteristics attributed to God. God is all-loving. God is omnipotent. God is omniscient. Heschel's position is that we must surrender one of these attributes. That's not my answer. To me, to give up any of these is to give up God.

So why does God let this stuff happen? Short answer: I don't know. I wish I did. Or, maybe I should be glad I don't. I do know that my walk, as wobbly-legged as it is at times, is a walk of faith. It's faith that I only found on the other side of doubt.

As always, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks for hanging out for a few, my friends!

More BP, then 'nuff of that for me

2010-06-14T18:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's blog post was about the BP oil spill. There was some reaction. Interestingly enough, my wife reposted it on her Facebook page, and the post drew more comments from her friends than I did from mine. Hmmmm. . .I am grateful for all of it. I'm hoping for some discussion or observation any time I post. Those who know me know I'm a gentle, tolerant soul. I will take you seriously, and I only look like I bite. (That's a joke, son.)

I do want to respond to one of the responses. It tended toward a point of view contrary to mine, and that response deserves a serious, respectful response.

The person (I'm not using his name - not because of anger but because I'm not sure he would want it used) pointed out that this was an accident. My question: at what point in the BP hierarchy was this an accident?

There is no doubt in my mind that, among the rig workers, this was absolutely a tragic accident. Nobody wakes up in the morning and goes to work thinking, "Gee, I think I'll blow an oil rig, create an environmental catastrophe, and kill a bunch of coworkers while I'm at it." Nobody in their right mind would think that, and I'm confident nobody did. For the workers, it was an accident.

But a little higher up the ladder. . .from Wikipedia: " Internal BP documents show that BP engineers had concerns as early as 2009 that the metal casing BP wanted to use might collapse under high pressure. . . In March 2010, the rig experienced problems that included drilling mud falling into the undersea oil formation, sudden gas releases, a pipe falling into the well, and at least three occasions of the blowout preventer leaking fluid.^[26] The rig's mechanic has stated that the well had problems for months and that the drill repeatedly kicked due to high gas pressure providing resistance. . .the blowout preventer was damaged in a previously unreported accident in late March 2010. . . Preliminary findings from BP’s internal investigation released by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on May 25 indicated several serious warning signs in the hours just prior to the explosion." I won't quote the whole article. But the point is, BP knew this, and ordered drilling to proceed anyway.

Can you seriously refer to this as an accident from management's point of view? If you take your car around a sharp curve at 100 miles per hour, you will probably have a crash. You most certainly will not have an accident.

The person who responded pointed out that they put gas in your car. Let's not give them too much credit here - they didn't do it for charity - but he does point to a valid, larger issue. Our problem isn't just addiction to foreign oil. It's addiction to oil, foreign or domestic. It really doesn't matter if you boycott BP gas stations. They're usually franchisees, and you'll be hurting one of the innocent parties. When a service station needs to fill their underground tanks, in most instances they make phone calls to local storage facilities to see who has the best price that day, and that's where they buy. You may be in a Clark station, but the gas could be Shell. It could be BP. You don't know.

The ironic think is, it's still hard to find someone to admit that Jimmy Carter was right - just 30 years ahead of his time. And Al Gore? Maybe he's absolutely wrong. Maybe he's a complete crackpot. But. . .but. . .what if he's right? Al Gore has presented his evidence. Where's the contrary evidence? What if he's right?

BP does employ a lot of people. I just can't see the argument that employing thousands compensates for killing two dozen in two incidents. Yes, the workers knew what they had gotten into - deep water drilling is a risky business - but in this case the company's management seems to have ignored and maybe even worsened the risks. Criminally so? That remains to be seen.

This wasn't meant to be a broadside against BP, but maybe it was. Other companies do deep water drilling more safely. BP has a particularly bad track record. My heart goes out to the workers who were lost. . .to their families. . .to those who continue to work at this dangerous job. Bless you all.

But this doesn't change what I see as the larger issue in all of this. Many of both parties have noted that we are just too dependent on the gloopy toxic messy environment-killing stuff.

As always, thanks for hanging out with me for a few. I do hope I've been respectful in addressing this.

And then there was BP

2010-06-12T20:40:00.000-07:00

And then there was BP.

My full-time job involves working with energy efficiency. I almost fell into the job, and I'm very glad I did. My view of our proper relationship to our planet is a stewardship view. This earth was not given to us to use in any way we wish. Rather, it's our task to care for it and pass it on in the best shape we can manage. I want all of my kids and grandkids - and all of your kids and grandkids - to enjoy this world, this marvel of God's creation, just as I have.

And then there was BP.

Working in energy efficiency does have its discouraging aspects. Even if we in the U.S. build every building to maximum possible efficiency - even if we convert our entire automobile fleet to all electric cars - even if we manage as an entire society to become completely carbon neutral - the increase in energy demand from China would eat our entire energy savings for breakfast. The problem with the Kyoto protocols (remember those?) wasn't what they demanded from us. It was in what they didn't demand from anyone else.

Even from China, there's some hope, although that hope is accompanied by another note of discouragement for us. The Chinese have moved into using more wind power. They have moved into the manufacture of the equipment for wind generation in a big way. The discouraging note? This is a field that could have opened up a lot of green jobs for us. The Chinese beat us to it. I'm not shocked. Our view of history tends to go back no further than the last election. Our idea of long-term financial planning gyrates between the Democrats' tax-and-spend-like-drunken-sailors policies, the Republicans' don't-tax-and-spend-like-drunken-sailors-anyway policies, and the new entrant, the Tea Partiers' all-we-want-is-everything-for-nothing policies. Our corporate mentality rarely thinks beyond the next quarter. Long-range planning, long-term investment? In any arena, at any level - FUHGEDDABOUTIT!

And then there was BP.

There have been those who suggested that President Obama should meet with senior executives of British Petroleum to discuss the situation. Never mind that an investigation has started to determine if the Gulf oil leak was a result of a crime or crimes. Just meet with the guy, will ya?

Gee, why didn't Herbert Hoover have a cup of tea with that nice Al Capone?

There is a congressman from Alaska who said that this was no catastrophe.. This was the same congressman who wanted the "Bridge to Nowhere" built. It's enough to make one think that Alaskan politicians have a loose attachment to reality. There is other such evidence. Alaska did have the Exxon Valdez. That incident was a fraction of the size of this Gulf spill, and clean-up should have been simpler. The Alaska coast was rocky, and water sprayed at high pressure was an available tool.

It's been 20+ years, and the effects are still felt.

A Republican does get some props from me. Governor Jindal of Louisiana has responded with the passion I'd hope for. Part of the reason I supported Obama in 2008, and will again in 2012, is his coolness of temperament and his formidable intellect. But this is a situation in which I'd like to see him fire in anger (not literally, OK?) as Jindal has done. I'd like to see how much this matters on a visceral, emotional level. There is such a thing as constructively losing it.

Even Jindal whiffed on the question of resuming and even expanding deep water drilling. I fear that the administration may miss this one too. My question for the "Drill, baby, drill" folks (and Sarah Palin is not alone on this front): You have now seen how things have gone terribly, terribly wrong. Before this happened oil executives talked much about their ability to drill safely in deep water. You saw the ads. You now know that they were lying. Not misinformed. Lying. But we bought it. Where was the voice that asked, "this well is under a mile of water. If something goes wrong, what's the action plan? You can't get divers down there and all equipment acts differently under the kind of pressure that's down there?" Nowhere, that's where the questioners were.

You have seen two explosions at these facilities in the past five years claim 26 lives. Are you OK with that?

Southern Louisiana has roughly 40% of our nation's wetlands, with incredible biodiversity. These wetlands may already have been thrown into a slow-motion but irreversible decline. That tool that was so handy in Alaska - that high-pressure water - would destroy those wetlands. Once the oil gets into the wetlands, there may be no cleanup available.

You want more deep water drilling? With no more assurances than we have now that the safeguards are adequate? We found out that there are no safeguards. Even if all the oil companies offered every assurance that this would never happen again, would we seriously believe them?

This evening as I walked from the kitchen to my den-home-officey-kind-of-room, Logan, our 6-year-old grandson, was playing at the kitchen table on our daughter's laptop. This caused some consternation to said daughter because Logan was supposed to be eating his dinner at the time. Meri, our 9-year-old granddaughter, just on the edge of preadolescent hormonal upheaval, was eating her dinner. Lovely brown-blond hair, green eyed, long-limbed Meri. Next week the Colorado grandkids will come here for a visit. We've got three in Quincy that we think about every day. And, one of our daughters married a guy with three kids, and they are now our grandkids too. Twelve in all. Twelve.

To all twelve of you: I have wanted to hand to you a world at least as awesome as the one I have had the privilege to enjoy. I've been to the top of Pikes Peak, and I have seen the view that inspired the writing of "America, the Beautiful." I've been on the ocean, and have seen darkness so thick it seems to have a density of its own - you feel like you could reach out and touch it. I've seen stars reflected in the ocean waters. I've felt the power of earthquakes and seen the might of thunderstorms. Just the quiet by an Iowa farm field is awe-inspiring if you know what to listen for. I have hoped to help preserve all of that for you.

I have done what I can. I am so sorry I could not do more.

Because then came BP.

Why I'm Catholic

2010-06-06T09:39:00.000-07:00

I hate to go about it this way, but I' starting with a negative approach to this question. (This is a topic that will take more than one post. I promise I won't post them all in a row). Maybe today's post would be more properly called, "After all that's gone on in the past ten years, how could you possibly still be Catholic?" It breaks my heart to admit it, but it's a fair question. I would not have you think me a Pollyanna-ish naif. For those who know me well, naive is about the last word they would use to describe me.

So, after the John Geoghan and the Lawrence Soens and all of the other priests who have abused children - and after finding out it wasn't just in the US - how could I still be Catholic? Why would I want to claim that status?

After the scandal of some bishops being complicit in the cover-up - an angry prosecutor in Boston said that the only reason Cardinal Bernard Law, Archbishop of Boston, wasn't indicted was that the statute of limitations had run out on any chargeable offense - how could I still be Catholic? Why would I be proud of that status, as I am?

Fair questions.

Soon after Jesus' earthly ministry the church was started. Most accounts would place the beginning of the church on Pentecost. For some years afterward Christianity was thought of as another Jewish sect, similar to the Essenes. At one point both Christians and Jews realized that this new group was different enough in thought, doctrine and practice that it could no longer be thought of as Jewish. And, thus, the Christian Church as a separate entity from the Jewish synagogue took more definitive form.

The Church, as founded, was a perfect, pristine institution. But, the Holy Spirit made probably the only mistake She has ever made. She let people in. You know, real life, flesh-and-blood human beings. Warts and all. And She continues to let these warted warped humans stay. My dominant image of church: not a runway fashion show, but a hospital for souls. I saw one church newsletter - denomination to remain nameless - that closed with "Let's all impress Heavenly Father with our righteousness." I didn't know whether to gag or laugh out loud.

So where does that put me with the sex scandals of the Church? I'm furious. Read that, "FURIOUS!!!" My first thought is for the victims. Of all the people in this world around whom you should be absolutely completely safe, a minister of any denomination should be thought of in the same class as parents, the doctor, your teacher. And I am outraged that some priests - and some teachers, and some doctors, and some parents, and some ministers - have not lived up to this. Those kids often are scarred forever.

I see no reason for any priest, teacher,minister or anyone else in a position of authority to be treated less severely in the criminal justice system than anyone else. Quite the opposite. That would mean that anyone complicit in a cover-up should be treated as an accessory.

I'm not impressed by the press' coverage of this issue. It has fed an anti-Catholic bias that is already well-fed. One would easily lose sight of the fact that the vast, VAST majority of priests understand celibacy as a gift from God to the church. They understand the vow they took, and live out that vow faithfully. Most of those folks don't get stories in the newspapers. And there's always the cluck-clucking of those who say, "I knew they did it. They all do it." No they don't. If you must spew your ignorance - if you must advertise how ill-informed you are - you may do so. Please be aware that I, for one, will be paying no attention to you.

I'm angry because this has provided grist for the mill of the right-wingers within our church who think that screening gay men out of the seminaries and priesthood will solve all ills. It wouldn't. If you were to draw up a profile of the pedophile, the word "gay" wouldn't be there. These people are usually straight. Often they are or have been married. Often they are divorced or their marriages are troubled because they don't deal well with relationships with equals.

Besides, if you understand celibacy, and have taken a vow to it, what difference could it possibly make whether you are gay or straight? The Catholic Church has never held sexual orientation to be sinful.

I'm upset because the left-wingers in our church also ride their hobby horses over it. "Let them marry! That'll relieve the sexual pressure!" Please see the paragraph above about the difficulties of pedophiles in relationships. Pedophilia, like rape, is not a crime of sex. It's a crime of power. If you take a pedophile and marry him, you don't have a non-pedophile. You have a married pedophile.

I did note that this will take more than one post to cover. One's faith is a deep issue, and if discussed at all should be discussed in depth. But, the scandal has had such prominence that, before discussing the positives I find in my faith, I have to acknowledge the negatives we've had.

As always, I'd love your thoughts. Thanks for hanging with me!

Walt and Vi

2010-05-31T17:26:00.000-07:00

There was a fellow named Walt. Walt spent most of his younger years in and around Muscatine. Came WWII, and Walt's country called. Walt answered. He fought in the European Theater. At one point he was injured badly enough that he was not expected to survive. He did survive, and returned home after the war.

There was a woman named Violet. During WWII Vi worked at the former Servus Rubber in Rock Island. That company was geared up for war production. "They also serve who only stand and wait" said Milton. Vi waited but she did a lot more than just stand.

After the War Walt met Vi. They married, then they had children. And children And children. Fourteen in all - three sons, eleven daughters. One of those sons dies in infancy. The other two also served when their country called them to duty in Vietnam - Joe in the USMC, Donald in the Army. Seems that words like honor and duty burned bright in Walt and Vi's home.

One of Walt and Vi's daughters grew up and married me. Cindy and I will celebrate our 35th anniversary in June. We had five kids - four daughters - and twelve grandkids. When Walt and Vi's kids have a family reunion it's quite a sight. "Who are you? And whose are you?!"

Mortality caught up with Walt and Vi, as it does, eventually, to all of us. Walt's been gone since 1988, and Vi since 2007. Today Cindy and I placed flowers on their graves. Those graves are in one of those places where the ghosts are never far away - The National Cemetery on Arsenal Island in Rock Island. It's where Cindy and I expect to be buried, since I am an honorably discharged veteran of the US Navy. I'm very proud of that.

So we placed the flowers on the grave. We stood a few moments and said a prayer. I made the sign of the cross, and we left in silence. To say much of anything would have seemed just wrong.

One weird visual juxtaposition occurred as we were leaving. The National Cemetery is very near the Confederate Cemetery. During the Civil War there was a prison camp for confederate POW's on Arsenal Island. Just across the street is the Rock Island Arsenal Golf Course. So, on this most hallowed of days for Americans, in this most hallowed of places, as we left we saw golf carts chugging around.

Walt and Vi, thanks for your service, both at home and in Europe. Thanks for raising such an interesting family filled with such honorable people - sons and daughters who have the integrity to live to the best lights they know. Thanks for raising my best friend, my spouse, my lover who has given me 35 wonderful years.

Thank you!

Service

2010-05-29T17:08:00.000-07:00

BP would be too easy pickins. I will pick on them, surely. I am wondering where the "Drill Baby Drill" chorus is now.

But not today.

One of my high school classmates posted a status mentioning his visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington - the Wall. I have never been to the Wall. The Wall is one of those places where those who gave all are memorialized in a settng in which you can feel the ghosts. Hawaii has more than one such - The USS Arizona monument, the Punchbowl.

I have visited one such place. It was a June Wednesday morning when I stopped at the Gettysburg battlefield. I don't even know if they have a visitors' center there - I stopped on a road that runs by one edge of the field. I saw no monuments, no memorials. Just - the field. Even so, the ghosts were there.

I live near another such: the National Cemetery on the Rock Island Arsenal.

"Happy Memorial Day" is a horribly inappropriate greeting. Maybe, "Thankful Memorial Day." It can't be happy when we're reminded that freedom isn't free. It has cost us dearly.

So, from me to those ghosts: I've always been OK with words. I don't have any words that even come close to saying "Thank you" strongly enough.

But, as inadequate as it is: Thank you. And may God be good to you.

Anesthesia

2010-05-25T17:20:00.000-07:00

Dysthymia has been my particular issue. If you Google dysthymia you'll be directed to a lot of web sites dealing with depression. Dysthymia is related to depression. The mood swings of depression are more pronounced than those of dysthymia, but dysthymia's milder form of depression is constant enough to be thought of as a personality trait. I rarely have the crash-into-a-black-hole feeling of a true depressive, although I have known it and there's nothing worse than that complete hopelessness - but it's also uncommon for me to be feeling really good about things. I have a very hard time just having fun. Letting loose is not something I do easily and a good belly laugh from me is rare. My mood is just sub - whatever.

And, pullleeeze - there's no point in asking what we're depressed about. If you're depressed about something, then it isn't depression. It's just sadness. Depression, dysthymia are all the more torturous because there's no aim to it. I wish I could point to a reason. I can't. Those who've been there know what I'm talking about.

Thus the genesis of addictions. It begins with the genetic predisposition. The research is clear and compelling - longitudinal studies, separated twin studies - that having an addict in your immediate family line places you at much higher risk of addiction than someone who has no such person in their ancestry. Some have gone so far as to say, "No genetics, no addiction." I don't know that I buy that strong a statement, but it's only because we don't know all of our own genetic makeup. We haven't identified one gene as the cause.

The second precursor is often some form of mental illness, some mood disorder. Dysthymia. Depression. There are a lot of folks among us with some form of social anxiety disorder. There are many, many bipolars among us.

It's really difficult for someone caught up in these disorders to describe their lives to someone who has no idea. So, we find something to soothe the pain.

Booze.

Coke (no, not Coca Cola).

Tobacco (sure helps with that stress, doesn't it? Only, good luck with telling your kids why they shouldn't smoke.)

Exercise. I've said there's no such thing as a good addiction. You can become addicted to a process as well as to a substance. The reason there's no such thing as a good addiction is that the line between habit and addiction is crossed when you are no longer free to choose to do something or not do it, You'll see people, on 35-degree days in a rainy, snowy wind-driven mix, jogging in their Spandex. They're as addicted as any smoker.

For many of us the substance or process of choice served us very well as anesthetic. It numbed the pain. Many of us would say that we don't even like the taste of the stuff. We just wanted relief. The problem was, while it numbed the pain it did nothing to solve the underlying problem. It only made it worse - I, a dysthymic, used alcohol, a depressant, and expected that depressant to help with depression?

Don't expect sense or logic from us.

I don't know if the term is still in common use, but mental health professionals have used the term dual diagnosis to describe this - a person who is an addict and who has some other mental disease. For me, once we identified the underlying disease, I began to be able to address the drinking, too.

And, only at that point was I able to base my faith on something real. More properly, on Someone who became more real to me than I ever was to myself.

For those caught up in this process as well as for the families of such folks, my heart is with you. You may convince yourself you're not worthwhile. You are, most certainly to me. God bless, and please feel free to contact me, if you think it may help.

As always, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks for hanging out with me!

Pentecost reflections

2010-05-23T17:21:00.000-07:00

I am most certainly glad that they haven't found out about this one.

The most important date on the Christian calendar is Easter. I think of Easter Sunday in conjunction with Good Friday. Had Jesus died in his sleep at a good old age, there would have been nothing demonstrably salvific about his death. The cross is critical to an understanding of what Jesus did for us. The gospel writers described Jesus' manner of death at great length; they obviously meant to emphasize it. Paul, in his letters, acknowledged the absurdity of the worship of a crucified God - unimaginable to Greeks, Romans, Jews, or anyone else - yet Paul proclaimed "We proclaim Christ crucified."

I do remember a time when Good Friday was a day off for most. Now, it's nothing special. You can have the day off - if you use your floating holiday for it.

And what has Easter become? Absent the event that Easter celebrates, terms like faith, hope, love take on a very different meaning for me, if they maintain any meaning at all. My faith, my hope, my love, the whole structure of my life and thought process, is centered on Christ crucified, and Christ risen. But now - it's a day for candies (gee, Easter ranks right up there with St. Valentine's Day, doesn't it?) It's a day for Easter eggs and organized hunts for them. And please, please, don't anyone mention that there's a religious dimension to all of this. Let's not call it Easter. Let's call it our "Spring Holiday".

When pigs fly, I will.

And about Christmas. It's not about the birth of anyone special. Nope. It's about new razors and luxury cars with great big bows tied on them and pajamas and you name it. So let's don't call it Christmas. Let's call it the Winter Holiday.

Does it feel to you like we are getting squeezed out of the public square? And maybe - just maybe - part of the cause is our own timidity?

A short time ago Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago, addressed an audience at Brigham Young University, a Mormon institution. Catholics are not Mormons, and Mormons are not Catholics. There are theological differences that are real. But Cardinal George's address concerned an issue that is common to Catholics, Mormons, and, I would think, the rest of Christendom: our right to have a place and a voice in the public discourse. I found his remarks inspiring, and I was pleased to see the LDS press' favorable coverage.

So, that brings me to today - Pentecost Sunday. The birthday of the Church. The day when the Holy Spirit moved over the disciples. The day when each person in a crowd that was there heard the Good News - each in their own language. (And, please note that this "gift of tongues" was as much about the hearers as it was about the speakers.) From that point, the progress of this faith was an unstoppable force.

This is also one of the major celebrations of Christianity. Thank God that the marketers haven't figured out what to do with this one yet.

Thanks for hanging out for a few! Love your thoughts.

Rambling thoughts from a rambling remembrance of the read

2010-05-19T18:36:00.000-07:00

I was always a good reader and, as an adult, I border on the voracious. The subject matter and genre is almost irrelevant (but please don't bother me with romance, western, or any of that Harry Potter or Twilight stuff. "Let's see how many cliches we can get into one page - or one plot!") But, there were those who, with all good intentions, almost turned me off reading.
When I was in 5th grade my teacher noticed that I enjoyed reading stories of the sea. I guess she thought she was doing me a favor when she gave me a copy of Moby Dick. I had no chance then of understanding that this was more than a whopping good whaling tale - although it is all of that. Other meanings completely escaped me, as - well, gee, it's one of the most difficult, complex reads of western civilization, and I was a FIFTH-GRADER, for crying out loud. But, she did do me a favor, after all. When I was an adult I came back to Moby Dick. I can't say I completely comprehend even yet - but I greatly appreciate the art.

I will be forever thankful for those who, over the years, introduced and reintroduced me to Shakespeare. I am, by dint of personality, more in tune with the tragedies than the comedies. I wasn't introduced to my favorite while in school. King Lear is the darkest of his tragedies. The role of Lear is a role that separates the actors from the hacks. The role of the fool is no easy role, either. That fool is no fool!

Lear opens with a conversation between the King and his three daughters. Lear has set a competition between his daughters to see which of them can praise him most extravagantly. Two of the daughters rise to the occasion splendidly but the third, Cordelia, is not gifted with skills of flowery speech. She only pledges what a daughter owes her father. Lear misses the significance of this. He splits his kingdom between the two big talkers, who barely wait to leave the room before they plot against him. He exiles Cordelia, who was loyal to him and would remain so to the end.

We were introduced to Thoreau as juniors in high school. I think it's appropriate - this is a writer that should be encountered at some time - but Thoreau is a lot more comprehensible to one who approaches him with some life experience. Thoreau was a great naturalist, and you can read Walden at that level, but that's missing Thoreau's theme. His theme: we are a composite of choices we've made. Some things that we think we simply must have - just can't do without - others manage to do very nicely without. Walden is a meditation on just what life is really about in its essence. We are our choices - we live the way we live, we occupy the house we live in and live in the location we live in and eat as we eat and sleep as we sleep because of choices. How did we ever get by without I-Pads and smart phones? Gotta have 'em - never mind that most of our forebears didn't have electric lights.

I also read newer stuff, but not much newer fiction. Recently I read On the Brink, Henry Paulson's memoir of the financial crisis of the Bush years. A while ago I saw on Facebook someone's status, "OBAMA - One Big-Ass Mistake America." I guess that passed as clever, in a sort of second-grade, prepubescent sort of way. If you read Paulson's book and pay attention to Paulson's encounters with the two candidates, you realize that Obama was no mistake. McCain would have been one big-ass mistake. America.

And a tip of the hat to one of my heroes in the faith. I wasn't a cradle Catholic - I came to Catholicism in adulthood - and when I was considering the change I encountered the writing of Thomas Merton. I won't try to write for him, but my thoughts on faith, on the pure love of God, on war and peace, almost exactly reflect Merton's.

I'd love to see what writers had an influence on you.

Thanks for hanging out for a few!

Looking back

2010-05-15T23:54:00.001-07:00

We drank a toast to innocence;

We drank a toast to now

And tried to reach beyond the emptiness

But neither one knew how. . .

-Dan Fogelberg

As I listened to this song today my mind was drawn to a group of people that formed a huge part of my life, the United Township High School Class of 1971. We were a mixed bag, as any other group would be. We had the usual assortment of those who you just knew would be wildly successful. We had those who you knew would get by OK. We had the usual assortment of alcoholics, druggies and other ne'er-do-wells, too.

One top-ten student is now affiliated with the Department of Engineering at an Ivy League university. (You expected?) Another is now a pastor. Two of the bunch went on to become sportswriters - enough to suggest that UTHS had a pretty good English department in those days. There are three attorneys that I know of - maybe more - and we have invaded the executive suites of a local insurance company. We have at least one dentist, although I don't know of any doctors (I don't count chiropractors as doctors.) A president of a tech-oriented company in suburban Chicago is one of ours. One of ours teaches special ed kids. I'm especially proud of him; I have a special needs daughter.

Doubtless the most well-known of our crew was Spike O'Dell, who went into radio. When he retired, it was from the position of host of the morning drive-time show on WGN Radio, Chicago. He retired, I heard, to a place by a golf course in a state that I have sworn to avoid at all costs. Spike, in his early years in radio, also kept a job as a security guard at the Farmall works - just down the street from where I was a security guard at the Deere Plow and Planter Works. I don't think he ever knew that.

Society at large saw a lot of changes starting about the time we graduated. The Quad Cities was no exception. For most of us the life course we expected was something like: graduate. Maybe do a stint in the military. Go to Blackhawk College, pick up some vocational skills. Go to work at Deere - either the Plow and Planter Works or Harvester Works - or maybe IH or Farmall, or maybe Case or Cat. All had large factories around here. Or, you might go to work at the Rock Island Arsenal. Now, Deere's Plow and Planter Works and Harvester Works are much smaller than they were. Case, IH, Farmall and Cat no longer have a presence in the QC. They've been replaced by - gambling boats. In between was a terrible recession in the area for most of the decade of the '80s.

That's progress. Or, should it be, That's progress????

That change is one thing that makes my reflections rather somber. I was, during this period, spending about two-thirds of my life trying to drink and otherwise drop myself into oblivion. I have, since then, hung onto sobriety and worked at building a life that is at least somewhat respectable. I think I came out OK. Maybe barely OK, maybe only OK by the skin of my teeth - but OK. If you'd seen me in about 1985 or so, you'd have not seen any OKness in my future.

Another thing that makes me reflective is a Facebook page: United Township High School Memorial Page. I am thankful to the creator of the page, although it saddens me greatly. One of the things that saddens me isn't specific to the class of '71. It's how many of the UT folks we've lost are younger than the '71 cohort. Many - way too many - were lots younger.

But for '71: I look at a list of those we've lost. There are 25 names. I remember some of them from having participated - not well, but participated - in athletics with them at various times. I remember one who was a lab partner with me. He was a bright kid, and was barely more than a kid when he was killed in a vehicle accident. I remember one who was such a talented basketball player in 7th-9th grades that we just knew he'd go on, get his scholarship, and do well. I did meet him after high school, in the state penitentiary at Joliet. I was guard. He was inmate. Now he's gone. I remember almost everybody on the list.

People who observe other people's religious behavior have noted that most churches lose a significant number of their people between the ages of about 18 to, maybe, 30. They just drift away. Sometime, about at age 30, they start to return. I've wondered why this happens. I think that, at about 18, the person is convinced they're invulnerable - perfect - all-knowing - and, free from parents. But, sometime or other, in one way or another, life will deal to you something that makes you know how vulnerable you really are, how little you really know, how big the mysteries really are. Birth is one such consideration. Why does one couple have a beautiful, "normal" child, while the next has a special needs child, and yet another, who want a child, can't have any at all? Why is it that the latter couple are wonderful, loving people who would never harm a child in any way, while an abusive family right across the street has seven kids? There's no answer that science can provide.

The existence of radical, personal evil is such a consideration. What would convince a McVeigh, a Bin Laden, that human life has no value whatsoever? Psychology and sociology have much to say about "how" - but nothing to say about "why?"

And premature, tragic death. We know about the aging process, and science can tell us all about the various disease processes. But we want the "Why?" Why is there anyone from the Class of '71 among the deceased? Why anybody younger, for heaven's sake? Science has nothing to say to this.

And so we are drawn back to faith, often by crisis. Faith doesn't tell us why either - but it does point us to One who loves all, does have a plan, and who does know the Why. Even if She can't share with us yet.

I'd love your thoughts.

Thanks for hanging out for a few!

Home at The Animal Planet

2010-05-12T17:27:00.000-07:00

Zoe is a cat. That doesn't make her unusual at our house. Three of them are here. But Zoe was the first.

Zoe is a beautiful animal - a black and white cat - and she usually doesn't have much of a naughty streak. But she does have an independent spirit. When she was a kitten she took some delight in running into our room before we noticed she was there. She'd streak under the bed and not come out until she was good and ready, thank you. Now she's grown, and can't sneak under the bed as easily. We thought she was broken of the habit UNTIL -

Until the day she decided to make her sneak-and-dash attack on the front door. Someone made the mistake of holding the front door open just a second too long, and - ZOOM! POOF! She's gone.

Oh, the long faces of Meri and Logan!

We found Zoe later. She was on the roof of the garage across the street. I have no clue how she got there; she's been declawed. She was looking over the edge of the roof: "I don't remember it being this high when I climbed UP here and sure as God made little green apples I'm NOT jumping down!" Time for me to come to the rescue. We found a chair for me to stand on. I could barely touch the roof, and Zoe wanted none of my rescue offer. Every time she saw my hand come over the edge, she'd peer down at me, and retreat to the peak of the roof. No chance I could grab her there.

Someone thought of a clever stratagem. Let's get her food bowl and bait her with it! That increased her curiosity, but only slightly. She still wasn't ready to trust me enough to get her down.

We finally did get her down. It involved getting the chair out of there. We didn't have a ladder - we're probably lucky we didn't - but my daughter has a pickup truck and a hard cover to the bed of her truck. I stood on the cover and could reach over the edge of the roof. With that, and more baiting with food, and Zoe either tiring of the game or realizing no other form of rescue was coming, Zoe finally decided to let me get her down.

Five minutes later Zoe was asleep on the back of the couch, like nothing at all had ever happened. About two weeks later the scratch marks on my arm were hardly visible. Grunt.

The second of the cats is Smoky. Smoky is jet black, so a black cat crosses my path daily. We didn't buy Smoky at a pet store. It was a January day, rainy-snowy mix, about 35 degrees or so. Midwesterners get the picture quickly. My son-in-law was standing outside the back door when this kitten came to him. This kitten was obviously very young, soaked, cold, and very hungry. He didn't have the heart to leave her like that, so it was off to the vet, and Smoky joined the family.

Smoky is a friendly, well-behaved (no door dashes for her) cat. She demands little. She does like a little petting in the morning - a greeting is always nice. (Zoe may be petted only by her permission. She'll let you know.) She gets along well with the other animals, with any person. I know cats' memories aren't long enough for her to remember what life was like before we welcomed her, but she shows no inclination at all to bite the hand that feeds her. Makes her different from lots of people, doesn't it?

The third cat is Nalla (I promise you, I didn't assign these names). Nalla's a brown cat with golden eyes. She thinks she's a lion and, if you look at her face in just the right way, you can see the family resemblance. Nalla is the most playful of the cats. She doesn't understand why all the critters around her don't flee in terror - "See? Lion here!" as she stretches her paws. Sorry, Nalla! all we see is kitty. We think you're lyin'.

Nalla also came into our home as a stray. It was a late summer-early fall day in the schoolyard where two of the grandkids go to school. Nalla came up to my daughter - very young, very small, very thin, very obviously hungry and castoff. So - PREACHY MOMENT WARNING - if you have a dog or cat and can't handle the puppies or kittens, get your dog or cat fixed. K? Smoky and Nalla would both have had really bad ends. They didn't, but we can't be there for all of the castoffs.

Thanks for hanging out for a few with me!

Moms In My Life

2010-05-08T13:05:00.000-07:00

My, oh my, did I ever get lucky. . .

My mom was a Depression-era baby. She was born near Cedar Rapids, and always carried memories with her of all the small towns in the area - of the difficulties her family faced in that era - of her mother's heartbreak at some things that went with the era. Her first job, I think, was a part-time job at a movie theater in Cedar Rapids. For the rest of her life she was interested in the movies. Name most any flick from the '40s on - she'd know who the stars were, what the plot was, what her opinion of it was. (No, I did not inherit this trait. My sister, however, has it in spades.)

I think the thing that she exhibited that really stands out to me, and that I try to carry forward: Maybe you have a problem, some issue. The nature of the issue isn't important. The attitude you bring to that issue is critical. If all you're going to do about the issue is complain about it, you'll spend your life spinning your wheels. Don't even bother with the complaining. What needs to be done is confront, admit - then fix.

Mom (and Dad) smoked like potbellied stoves for years. She confronted - and stopped.

Mom didn't finish school the first time through. It became a problem for her when she wanted to get back into the workforce. She confronted - and graduated. Like parents, like kids: I didn't finish college on the first try, when Dad was paying for it. I thought I had a better idea. Actually, I was a homesick kid in Urbana-Champaign, and I wasn't ready for the place. But, eventually, I did get my BA. When the time for the graduation ceremony arrived, my wife attended - as did all five of the kids. Confront - solve. Thanks, Mom!

I will be forever grateful to our Mom, and Mothers Day is a bit of a pensive day for me. She passed in September, 1997, and some of my day will be in thinking of her, and in prayers that God will be good to her. She never, ever doubted that. I don't either. I love you, Mom.

Now, my life is full of Moms. I'm thankful to my wife, Cindy. In June we will celebrate our 35th anniversary (Man, that's a lot of garbage to carry out!) We have five kids, four of them daughters. I now know the subject of raising daughters very well, but when we had our first one, this is how much I knew: 0. (I thought I knew lots and lots.) Cindy did have some teaching to do. I wasn't always an easy student. As you may have guessed from previous postings, living with me hasn't always been a day at the beach. If we have raised kids of whom we can be proud, thank you, Cindy! And if we have happy grandkids, thank you for that, also. I love you more than I can say.

I am thankful for my daughters who are Moms - who would do whatever it took to keep those grandkids fed, clothed, housed, safe. Although I'm told that this is a daily occurrence: Daughters remember a line I used on them. Daughters have sworn that they would never ever ever use those lines on their kids. Daughter uses those lines on their kids. Daughters catch themselves halfway through using said phrases and slap themselves in the forehead. (Be honest - it's not just my daughters that do that, is it?) Please believe me: I may have taught you a few things. You have taught me more. I love you, and have loved every minute of the time you've been with me.

Happy Mothers Day to my sister, Sheri - also a mom, and one of my heroes. Sheri does not think of herself as heroic. She is. IN CAPS. I love you!

I'm thankful for the Moms that I work with. To name names would be to forget someone that shouldn't be forgotten, so I apologize in advance. But to Annie and Torrie, Jill and Susan, Darice and Tracy and Dianna and Julia and Anna and Amber Marie and Amanda and Katie and Leah and Charity and Trisha and Ravis and Sammye Ann and Ashly and Candi and Ealana and Trish and Tina and anyone else I'm not naming: Happy Mothers' Day! Thanks for showing me every day what strength and devotion really are

They're motherhood.

Arizona part 2

2010-05-04T16:49:00.000-07:00

My last blog post was just "Arizona". I'm guessing you can guess what it was about. It drew some reaction, mostly positive. And some negative. As I expected.

I lost a Facebook friend.

One person suggested I shut up about it. OK, the exact words were {if you don't follow the behavior pattern prescribed in this post} "don't give it lip service".

I've always had an interesting reaction to being told to shut up. It does not involve shutting up.

Two other people posted:

JUST SO I UNDERSTAND THIS...YOU PASS THE NORTH KOREAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET 12 YRS HARD LABOR, YOU PASS THE AFGHAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET SHOT. YOU PASS THE AMERICAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET A JOB, DRIVER'S LICENSE, ALLOWANCE FOR A PLACE TO LIVE, HEALTH CARE, EDUCATION, BILLIONS OF DOLLARS SPENT SO YOU CAN READ A DOCUMENT. WE CARRY PASSPORTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES OR FACE JAIL TIME. REPOST IF YOU AGREE

This may have passed as wit in some circles, I guess.

YOU PASS THE NORTH KOREAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET 12 YRS HARD LABOR. Are you serious? Is the North Korean justice system one that you want to emulate? You call our President a Socialist, but you want us to be North Korea?

YOU PASS THE AFGHAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET SHOT. You should make up your mind. Is it North Korea you want us to be, or is it Afghanistan?

WE CARRY PASSPORTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES OR FACE JAIL TIME. Not all other countries. By the way, have you thought about why there is such heavy traffic coming north from Mexico but almost none coming south from Canada? (suggested answer later).

It does strike me as a bit unnerving that you can find anything you want on the Web, and you can support any position you want with what you find. Never mind whether there's any factual basis to what you find. Not my quote, but I wish it were: You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts.

Enough of that. Not one of the responses to me addressed the concerns I expressed: that this law is unnecessary (law enforcement can detain illegal immigrants now, if they have probable cause), it may well be unconstitutional (detaining US citizens - an almost inevitable consequence of this law - without probable cause, with reasonable suspicion established solely by racial profiling), and it's awfully gosh darn inflammatory. (Got YOU inflamed, didn't it?)

Just so we're clear, I also see the unrestrained flow of undocumented folks as an issue, and I take very seriously those who express such a concern. There are ways to slow or stop that flow that have been discussed endlessly for years. But, really, think about the consequences to throwing them all out.

Your groceries will get a lot more expensive. That produce that's so good for you? Harvesting it is backbreaking work - mostly done by illegal immigrants. Never mind finding Americans to do that work. They won't - not at the wages that are paid. Same is true of the cattle industry.

Something that has happened a lot in the past. I don't know if it's ongoing. Employer adds laborers. Employer gets the month or so of work that he wanted. Just before payday employer calls the INS. When payday comes around - look! no employees!

Please tell me how that squares with any notion of fairness.

Something else that happens. Mexican citizen marries a citizen of the USA. They form a family. Mexican citizen lives here and works hard for years. One would think that there would be some shortcut to citizenship for this person - like those years of working were a shortcut. But, no. When President Bush, in a truly decent act, floated something like that - a guest worker program - the hard right screamed blue and bloody murder. "AMNESTY!!!! NO AMNESTY!!!!!" So, this worker is sent - home?

You who value your families - you who call yourselves "family values" advocates - how do you square that with breaking up of other peoples' families?

I don't know, but maybe someone will tell me to shut up again. Maybe someone will have another ridiculous Facebook posting. Then I'll have to think of something more to say more about this. I'll leave the last word to someone far more important than I:

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. . .for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me. . .Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.

Arizona

2010-05-01T17:27:00.000-07:00

This morning I drove to St. Mary's Monastery in Rock Island for our monthly Oblates' meeting. On the way I had a Santana CD playing in my Mitsubishi. I love Santana, and I had the music a little loud. OK, it was the 57-year-old's version of blasting. All of Santana's music has a heavy Latin flavor (you expected?), and not all of the songs are in English.

Under Arizona's new law that could have gotten me pulled over. I'd have had to provide proof of my citizenship.

My opinion: this law is incredibly and needlessly inflammatory. It's racist in its aim (does anyone think this is aimed at a Czech student who overstayed her visa? seriously?). It's on very shaky constitutional grounds, and I'm guessing it will face a serious challenge. And, for its stated purpose it's unnecessary.

Some of those objections relate to one another. The law obliges law enforcement officers to require papers from anyone about whom there is "reasonable suspicion" of their legality. More about that term "reasonable suspicion" later, but what, exactly, would the grounds be for this reasonable suspicion? If a policeman saw someone walking down the street, what would trigger the thought, "I have a reasonable suspicion that this person is an illegal immigrant?" I know that there will be a lot of rationalizations that dance around the true answer. One California congressman said that he could tell by the way they dressed. Hmmm. . .Nonsense. There's only one thing that, in Arizona, would initiate such a thought.

Their brown skin. That's it, and that's all.

You think such racism is gone? The following incidents involved law enforcement officials, not in Arizona but right here in the Quad Cities.

A few years ago a woman on the west side of Davenport had her apartment invaded. The perps beat her and stole some items from her apartment. When the police arrived they investigated and took a report - AFTER making the victim provide proof that she was here legally. She's Mexican, you see. So, you've got someone who is scared, who needs medical attention, but the first thought in your mind was "Let's make sure she's here legally. We'll try to nail the perps later." Really?

A few weeks ago my parish pastor was called to the Bettendorf Police Dept. He was needed to bail out a parishioner. This person had been arrested for a seat belt violation. That was the only charge when Father got there. NOBODY gets arrested on a seat belt violation. NOBODY - unless you happen to have brown skin and you speak English with a funny accent.

If such things happen in the QCA - and I'd bet that most, even from here, didn't know they had - then what kind of thing would go on in a place where it's really a hot-button issue, like Arizona?

Part of the shakiness on constitutional grounds comes from that term, reasonable suspicion. Within law enforcement, reasonable suspicion has a meaning relating to the evidence indicating that an individual has committed an offense. Reasonable suspicion is the stage at which serious investigation begins. Normally, arrest and trial don't occur until the next level of certainty is reached - probable cause. If this law requires detaining people on only the basis of race without probable cause - the same level that it would take to get you arrested - then it is, very likely, unconstitutional. We'll have to see how that plays out.

The other issue of constitutionality has to do with a state infringing on a federal responsibility. The tenth amendment grants to states any powers not reserved to the federal government. Securing of borders is a task reserved in the constitution to the federal government. The state's not liking the way the federal government does that task is not reason for the state to usurp it. Again, we'll have to see how this plays in the courts.

The law is unneeded. Being in the country illegally is a crime now. Law enforcement may detain for that now - IF they have probable cause. This law only takes the (unconstitutional, in my opinion) step of taking the requirement for law enforcement down from probable cause to reasonable suspicion.

I expect that none of these considerations will mean much to the dyed-in-the-wool "Murca's our country and keep then furners out" folks. I'm thinking that this type of thought won't mean much in a state where John McCain has ditched any pretense to integrity because he's got a hard-right challenge from ol' J.D. And, this part of the country was Mexican territory for hundreds of years before it became part of the USA. It was Spanish-speaking long before any English-speaking person saw it.

Sleep well tonight and please don't be troubled by what the hard right is turning your country into.

Playing The Sport That Uses You

2010-04-26T17:38:00.000-07:00

There was a fellow named Dexter. Dexter Manley. Dexter was a rather large youth, and very athletic. When he attained his full adult size, Dexter was about 6'5", maybe 265 or 270 pounds. He was unbelievably fast for his size, he was every bit as strong as that size would suggest, and he didn't mind taking or giving hits. He was kept moving through school because he was unbelievably fast for his size, he was every bit as strong as that size would suggest, and he didn't mind taking or giving hits. He had a lot of football savvy.

Dexter went to Oklahoma State University for four years on a football scholarship. His grades were just OK, but they were always OK, because he was unbelievably fast for his size, he was every bit as strong as that size would suggest, and he didn't mind taking or giving hits. Besides, the Oklahoma States and Ohio States and the Southern Cals and (insert any SEC team here) really don't much care about whether their student-athletes learn anything, as long as they learn the playbook.

Dexter went on to the Washington Redskins. His career netted him 106 quarterback sacks, a few Pro Bowl appearances, and a couple of Super Bowl rings. He would have had three, but about a month before what would have been that third Super Bowl he was suspended from the NFL. For life. He'd failed a drug test. For the fourth time.

How could someone so gifted athletically, who had so much handed to him, toss it all away? How?

An interesting tidbit about Dexter Manley came out after he was out of football. Dexter Manley, who went to Oklahoma State for four years, was illiterate. I don't mean functionally illiterate - I know a sadly large number of college grads who fit that description - but "I-can't-read-a-word" illiterate.

Where was that person, in junior high, in high school, or at OSU, who would take Dexter aside and say, "You need to make some other choices in your life. At some point, it's not all fun and games.You'll need these skills you're neglecting." Whoever that person was, he didn't encounter Dexter, or he was encouraged to keep quiet. Because Dexter was unbelievably fast for his size, he was every bit as strong as that size would suggest, and he didn't mind taking or giving hits. He had a lot of football savvy. Too bad he missed out on the life savvy.

To his credit, Dexter Manley no longer is illiterate. And he showed great courage in admitting his problem (in a public hearing, no less), facing his problem, and doing something about it. It's not all clear sailing for him - he's in debt up to his neck - but he faces life honestly.

Would that he were the only horror story about athletes being used up, then discarded by their sports. The NFL is notorious for it. John Mackey was a tight end for the Baltimore Colts. He has a Super Bowl ring also; in fact, he caught a touchdown pass in that Super Bowl. John Mackey was, arguably, the greatest tight end in history. But, if you happen to be around him, he'll put that ring in your face and tell you all about it. And tell you. And tell you. That is, if you catch him in one of his more lucid moments. John Mackey suffers from dementia. He spends his life, when he goes anywhere at all, being led by the hand. Likewise Larry Morris, former linebacker from the Bears. For both, and a number of others, family finances are precarious. There's no health care coverage for former NFLers, unless they can prove that their dementia is a direct result of concussions suffered while playing. Good luck with that.

I still watch football. At the college level I'm a fan of Notre Dame - one of the schools that brings a kid on board with the full expectation that he'll graduate and actually take some classes not taught by an assistant football coach. I also watch the Bears, although that's become a bit of a guilty pleasure. I'm sure the marketing juggernaut that is the NFL won't notice if I stop watching, and I just might.

I prefer baseball anyway. Cubs on. Cheerio!

I'm hoping this will be. . .

2010-04-19T16:24:00.000-07:00

. . .the last word from me on chemical dependence for a while. It's a few random observations, drawn from experience or reading or acquaintance.

NO GENETICS, NO ADDICTION. Some doctors and counselors would say it this starkly. Not everybody who has an addict in their family line become addicts themselves. But there are very few addicts who do not have an addict in the family line.

I would not necessarily use this with someone that I thought needed help. The reason is that not everyone who has an addict in the family line knows it. Often it's not talked about, even within the family. Alcoholism still has a stigma, even though it is thought of as a disease - predictable course, predictable outcome. But, if Grandpa died of a heart attack, we're fine with talking about that. And if Aunt Sally passed on because of cancer, we may discuss the entire course of the condition - treatment, symptoms, well into TMI country. But if Uncle Ralph died of cirrhosis - "Shhhh. Uncle Ralph got really sick."

THE ELEMENT OF DENIAL. Many definitions of addiction include a reference to an element of denial. The capacity of the alcoholic to deny and rationalize can be amazing. One may be in a hospital bed, dying from cirrhosis. He's lost family - more than once. He's lost jobs and a business or two. But, even at this moment he still maintains, "I didn't have a problem drinking."

Yes, we can see that. It was the staying sober that you couldn't handle.

ONE DAY AT A TIME is a lifesaver. There's the big sweeping statement we seem so fond of making: "I'll never do THAT to myself again." You've made your mind up, once and for all, and you'll never drink again. . .until tomorrow night. The approach that has worked, time and again, for millions: One Day At a Time. It's not fair that I can't have a Chianti with my lasagna, that I can't have a Brandy Alexander after dinner. I can't have the beers-and-pizza party. I can just have the pizza, and not too much of that. I can't handle the thought that this will be so for the rest of my life. But I can - I CAN - get through today. I can be sober today. I'll worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. I last had a drink December 7, 1985 - but my sobriety hasn't been 24-years-+. It's been single day after single day, a series of single days strung together. Few days go by that I don't want a drink. But, day by day, I have been sober.

GET TO KNOW YOUR HIGHER POWER.AA is not picky about your Higher Power. It can be God. It can be an old windowsill. Our attitude: whatever works for you. Some use AA itself as the Higher Power. AA has helped millions to recovery, and you can't handle your own drinking. That makes them a higher power than you, at least in some sense. I call my Higher Power God - there were, by his grace, too many of just the right people in just the right time at just the right place for me to think of it all as coincidence. Don't ask for my explanation for those who were not so lucky. I don't have such an explanation.

GET OVER YOUR RESENTMENTS. You can't afford them - they're a great excuse for your next bender.

ABOVE ALL, FIND HELP. TAKE ADVANTAGE. I first went to an AA meeting in Dubuque, Iowa. Was I ever hesitant! I parked outside the building, and did a waltz with my van for several minutes. "Am I going in? No? I need to? Not?" Yes - no - out of the van, onto the street, back in the van. I eventually got out of the van and crossed the street. The AA chapter that I went to was in the basement of its building. Just because we have a sense of humor about such things, to get to the basement you had to walk past The Dog House Lounge - one of the busier bars in Dubuque. If the AA person with the key didn't show up, we had to get the key to the AA meeting room - from the bartender.

In my discussing this, it's my sincerest hope that someone who needs some help may know it - that they may recognize the behaviors that they exhibit - that they may recognize themselves in that 14-year-old girl I described earlier, or see themselves as the parent of that girl. Whoever you are, there's help. Please grab it. If you need to, find a way to contact me. I'll try to put you in touch with the needed help.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.

Thanks for hanging out with me for a few!

Peter, do you love me more than these?

2010-04-17T18:38:00.000-07:00

Today's Gospel reading for Mass included Jesus' asking Peter three times if Peter loved him, and Peter's three affirmations that he did. It's in John 21:15-19. Please go read that now. I'll wait.

The New Testament was written in Greek. Greek has more than one word that we translate as "love". If you're not familiar with that idea, and you're reading in English, you can easily miss what's going on in this passage. Thanks to Fr. Ed O'Melia at St. Mary's for this insight.

One of the words for love is "Phileos". This is brotherly love, or "buddy" love. It's the root of the name of the city of Philadelphia.

A second word is "eros". We hear that and hear the root of "erotic" and think, "Sex!" And, romance and sex are part - but only part - of what Eros is about. Eros is the love that seeks its own perfection, its own completion, its own perpetuation. I think you can see where the sexual connotations have come from. When the Greek philosophers - most famously in Plato's Symposium - write about love, it's almost always Eros.

Agape is the third term. Where Eros seeks the perfection of the self, Agape seeks the good and the perfection of the other. Eros shows frequently in philosophy. Mention of Agape is rare in philosophical writing, but the New Testament is loaded with it. "Greater Agape has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." 1 Cor. 13 - the love chapter - is all about Agape.

In the passage from John, Jesus asks Peter three times if Peter loves him. But the sequence of questions and answers is:

Jesus: "Peter, do you Agape me?"
Peter: "Yes, Lord, I Phileos you." I can't do that Agape thing. I'm just not there. I want to be your friend, your buddy.

The second round. Jesus: "Peter, do you Agape me?"
Peter: "Yes, Lord. You know I Phileos you." Peter again takes Jesus' question down a notch. He's not ready for the larger commitment Jesus seeks.

In the third round, Jesus comes down that notch: "Peter, do you Phileos me?" Is that really the best you can do just now? And you can maybe understand Peter's hurt in his answer: "You know, Lord, that I Phileos you."

What looks like a three-time affirmation to make up for Peter's three-time denial becomes something more. It becomes a beautiful story of Jesus' willingness to accept Peter where Peter was. Jesus doesn't send Peter packing. "Feed my sheep" - Jesus accepts Peter and will make use of Peter just as Peter is. Just like he does for us. But, he's not going to just leave Peter as he is. The following passage foretells Peter's conversion, from Phileos to Agape.

I hope I find my way on that path. And, I hope we may seek it together.

Thanks for hanging with me for a few!

Drunken Dad, Boozy Mom

2010-04-13T19:46:00.000-07:00

Before I get into my topic tonight I want to say thank you to all who have been reading my blog. The posts have drawn some online comment. I'm grateful for every one. Several people have let me know in ways other than online comments that something I wrote meant something to them. That's incredibly gratifying and moving. Given the limited number of people who know this blog exists, a good number click onto the blog each time I post. (I can see how many. I can't see who!) I love being with you for a few! I hope something I've said has moved you or helped you or just made you laugh. Thanks!

A few posts ago - in "The Power of Addiction" - I mentioned a 14-year-old girl. She's not any particular individual I know, yet she is. She may be someone you know.

Alcoholism obviously affects parents. The two spouses have their routine. This week the husband is the alcoholic and the wife is the codependent. Next week the roles switch. Soon enough, they switch back. Sometimes both are drinking. Sometimes both are defending the other's habit. If this family ever gets into counseling it will be a challenging task for the counselor to determine who is the alcoholic and who is the codependent. For now. Trying to get a handle on this family is like trying to get a drink of water by using chopsticks.

Drinking water using chopsticks is an apt description of the effort by the children to define their own roles. What most 14-year-olds are doing is trying on new personalities, new looks, a new sense of style and of their place, and they try a new one every day, or so it seems. They eventually find the pattern that fits them best. As frustrating as it is for parents, it's all good and healthy. This 14-year-old has never had time for that. How can you even try to define yourself when the whole family around you is constantly playing - and shifting - roles?

So, this one had to grow up way. too. fast.

This daughter is the superkid. Ultra conscientious overachiever, typically a firstborn. She's is a people-pleaser. She's a straight-A student in school. She plays in the band and maybe holds down a job, too. No one could know that there are any issues at all with her. She puts on a "Nothing's wrong!" mask. Few, if any, would ever guess.

Few, if any, would ever guess that she had to get up early enough to see if Mom and Dad got home last night. They did, so the next thing she has to do is clean up the mess. Once she's gotten the vomit out of the carpet she calls Dad's work, pretending to be Mom, to let them know that he's sick. Again. She then calls Mom's work, pretending to be Mom. She hears the lecture that Mom's boss thinks he's giving to Mom. One more time - just one more time. . .

Then she got her younger siblings up, got them to get dressed, and fixed breakfast so they could all go to school, and so she can put that "Nothing's wrong with me!" mask on again.

This can't be the life of a 14-year-old. Almost inevitably the breakdown comes. Sooner or later - the breakdown comes. The form this breakdown takes is unpredictable, but the breakdown does come.

There are other roles that kids in an alcoholic family move into - The Clown, The Lost Child. They'll be the subject of other posts. Please bear in mind that the characteristics of which I'm writing are traits that appear in people who did not grow up in alcoholic homes. People who know me well know that I have a tendency toward the super-responsible, mixed with more than a little streak of the clown. I didn't grow up with alcoholic parents. We all have some combination of these traits.

But a child from an alcoholic home tends to exaggerate - responsible-on-steroids, so to speak, or clown-on-steroids, or really REALLY lost child.

Please also remember that we're speaking of tendencies, not universals. Homo sapiens is a very complex animal, and I would not want to oversimplify.

Thanks for hanging out for a few!