The Catholic Fringe Unraveling On Both Selvages, and Overplaying One's Hand

A bit of hubbub of late over some ordained persons' calling out of some unordained persons, in some cases by name, (one of said ordained persons being in the habit of threatening unordained persons with civil lawsuits,) following the unordained persons having called out other ordained persons by name, some consecrated persons by name, and even, in several cases, an installed person whose name is... well, known to virtually the entire world.
Some of all of this is deserved, other instances are unfair, some of it is bullying and clericalist, some of it is barking mad.
Hardly is anyone in these wars ever 100% wrong, there are often good reasons, up to a point, and very often, perhaps usually, good intentions. (We must assume that last, until the assumption is proved wrong.)
Even the ill-intentioned will begin with the reasonable and kind and inarguable.
Sometimes people give themselves away, of course, frequently by overplaying a hand,
Ah ha, the observer says to himself, I was with you up till now, you first point was undeniable and laudable but I see now that that was merely a set-up to this balderdash, an attempt to lull us into amiability so you could sneak in some poppycock.
Man cannot keep himself from Going Too Far.
Been discussing the failed 1998 translation a great deal with a friend lately,
While I admit there are some clunky moments in the one in use today, I overall drastically prefer it to the rejected one.
But there are other words and phrases spurned by TPTB that I would have endorsed, and more, endorsed the agenda behind them - but the reformers, as so often, went too far.
They knew, they had to know, that eventually, when push came to shove the Catholic Church was not going to allow the Anglophone Catholic Church, no matter how many of us like to think of ourselves as an autonomous sect, NOT to say, "I believe," and "and with your spirit," and "for you and for... many," (I actually think they could have sneaked that one in with "THE many.") Perhaps not on this go 'round, but eventually, and couldn't we finally have a few decades of liturgical calm now?
(Oh, and for the record, sometimes clunky is waaaaaaay better than curt.)
I digress.
Anyway, the Rad-Trad fringe has a lot of right on its side, and honest, it is possible to decry the feminization of ministry, and see it as a wedge issue for the impossibility that looms so large in the spiralist agenda*, the ordination of women, without despising women. (I promise you, I am not a self-hating gyno-American.)
But likewise, it would be easier to believe die-hard traditionalists oppose women in Holy Orders on loving theological grounds is so many of them did not openly display such contempt for women. Protestations that no, of course not, women are not held in less regard by the Church would be so much more credible if Aquinas hadn't said we were “deficiens et occasionatus”, if so many functions besides the confection of the Eucharist were not reserved to priests, and oh, yeah, the priesthood is reserved to men.

A contributing factor in the social recognition of the role of women is a greater appreciation of their responsibilities in the Church: their involvement in decision-making, their participation in the administration of some institutions and their involvement in the formation of ordained ministers.

Well, yeah.... it could be.
And it could have been.
For centuries.
And the longer it took the Church, it still takes Her, to come 'round, the harder it is to believe that Her denial of the presbyterate to women isn't just part and parcel of Her denigrations and ignoring of other charisms woman might have to offer Her and all of mankind.
Anyway, among the much criticized bloggers, there's a fellow who in a newish thread is arguing against "sacramental trans-genderism,"
Good for him, good turn of phrase, and he's right, mostly.
But he can't let a side comment go without answering it with this stupidity:

universal suffrage was one of the worst ideas in human history. Personally, I'm all for head of household landowners being the only ones allowed to vote. They have the most skin in the game.

That's right.
Not everyone who is entitled to vote knows what he's dong, so let's limit it.
Oooh. Interesting.
How?
I.Q. test?
Determining the potential voter's logical acuity or moral fiber?
No.
By wealth and ownership of material goods.
And he caps it off with the inanity about "skin in the game."
Um, no. LITERALLY wrong.
His ideal voter may have capital staked, he may have money on the game, but we each of us, literally, have one, our own, skin in the game.
His idea is as contemptible as the idiot's in the UK who think young people's votes should count more than that of their elders in the BREXIT referendum, since they'll probably live longer with the consequences.
-------
(*Those who hold it might prefer the phrase "progressive agenda," but it aint' progress when you're going around in circles.

"Happy Reproduction!" wishes from those wacky Norwegians

I dunno, with all the angst about human sexuality of late, and fretting about synods and motu propio letters, and human relationships, and the virtue of some of them -- I don't think this slightly risque story is too much.
Apologies if any of my 3.7 readers find it so.

Passengers were left stunned after a Norwegian Air Shuttle flight attendant ... used the aircraft’s loudspeaker to 'congratulate' the lovebirds who were ‘reproducing’ on the two-hour flight from Paris to Stockholm.
... passengers cheered and burst into fits of laughter when they learned two of their fellow travellers were joining the mile high club....police were not contacted as flight safety wasn't compromised.
While it may seem humorous, sky-high sexual trysts on board commercial jets have been no laughing matter in past incidents.
A number of couples have been charged in recent years for engaging in sex acts in the lavatory and in their seats.

No doubt there are some who will proclaim the victimhood of the couple, or at least of the female half of the duo.
Because, "slut-shaming."
You know what I blame this on?
Wi-fi.
Those Interwebs.
Expectations of ubiquitous entertainment, 24/7.
The digital age.

They probably forgot their iPads, and the poor things couldn't imagine not having something... fun to do for a whole TWO HOURS.

See?
It wasn't their fault, they ARE victims.
In fact, it's kind of retro, a wholesome back-to-basics approach to living.

 

"In my day we made our own fun!"

"I miss the bacon...."

That is an elderly religious sister who has succumbed to the necessity of living out her days in a Jewish nursing home.

For 98-year-old Sister Angela Rooney, it was one of the most jarring moves of her life.
She always thought she would live out her days as she had for decades, in a convent under the time-honored Roman Catholic tradition of younger nuns dutifully caring for their older sisters.
But with few young women choosing religious life, her church superiors were forced to look elsewhere for care, and in the past year have sent Rooney and dozens of other nuns to Jewish Home Lifecare, a geriatric-care complex in the Bronx....
It's an unusual situation that reflects a reality of the nation's Catholic nuns in the 21st century: Fewer young women are devoting their lives to religious orders, and those who are already nuns are aging and facing escalating health care needs.

(The bacon "remark" was just a silly aside, these women actually seem cheerful, and obedient to their calling and accepting of their situation.)
I wonder that more Catholic institutions with under-used facilities have not turned to a new vocation, that of elder care.
I do know of one seminary with no seminarians that was transformed into a lovely assisted living facility.
One of the sisters in the article mentions missing their chapel, Stations... me, when the time comes, (and it's hurtling toward me, or I it, at breakneck speed, I sometimes think,) I want to be within walking distance, or tottering distance, or wheeling distance, to liturgical splendor.
I remember seeing buildings that seemed shabby enough that I'd be able to afford them on whatever SS and pension and IRA accumulated, in the environs of St John Cantius, but that neighborhood grew a bit too gentrified, doubt it's in my reach now.
Well, who knows, I can't predict what my life or the world will be like two weeks from now, much less two decades!

"You know you have reached middle age when every new person you meet reminds you of someone you already know"

So said Ogden Nash, (perhaps not in those exact words, but some such...)

And old age?

Apparently, when no "celebrity" cited in the media is anyone of whom you have ever even heard.

" 'Being on the Radio' Rather Than 'Performing on TV' "

This is a reminder of which I was very much in need.
From Zenit:
Singing the texts, at least on solemn occasions, reminds us that this is no ordinary text but God's word to us. It also fixes the attention very much on the word itself.
In 2005 a reader offered the following valuable suggestion based on experience, which I think is worthwhile repeating:

"When teaching lectors and seminarians, I have found it useful to tell them to think of themselves as 'being on the radio' rather than 'performing on TV.' This causes them to think how best to use their voice to proclaim the word of the Lord, undistracted by 'looking at the congregation, facial movements, gestures, etc. This approach allows the reader to take account of the listeners, making as clear as possible the sense of the text in front of them -- when God is speaking via their mouth. It also allows them to realize that the 'spoken word' they speak is God's word alive and so the most important thing. It also avoids the temptation to 'dramatize the text.'"

Himself and I have schtick, (shtick? shtik?) imitation an uber-dramatic lay reader at a parish in, (where else?) a theatrical community, Danversesque enough on the actual reading, hysterically so on "The word........ of....... the Lord," dropping her sepulchral voice at least an octave for the final two word.

And in my former parish I thought there were some usually superb readers who occasional crossed the line into dramatics.

And I've recently noticed that it is something against which I have to guard.
I receive a lot, a LOOOOOOOOOOOOT of compliments on my proclamation, not because I am particularly good but because many of the readers at my current parish are particularly bad.
Besides handling proclamation duties for Communion services in nursing homes, I read from time to time in the parish church itself, and specially in season, our congregation's collective age is really up there.
We have people who place there own devices on the ambo to transmit sound directly to them,  (if  only I had known of such devices when Mom was alive and deprived of really enjoying Church/opera broadcasts/tennis on TV, I'm assuming these same devices can somehow work with television,) and we have far more parishioners who could really use such technology

Besides volume -- I hold still, and insisted when choosing children and teens to chant or lead songs, (I couldn't do anything about those already in the cantor corps when I arrived, or the readers,) that if ones projection is insufficient when un-mic'ed one should not yet be allowed to read or sing with a mic' -- the most important aspects on which to focus are enunciation of consonants, particularly final, (thank you!) and punctuation or prehaps more accurately implied punctuation, (thank you!,) as it indicates phrasing.

Oh, and yeah, look up all those Old Testament names before hand, if necessary. Remarkable numbers of lay readers don't seem to have checked out "their" readings before arriving at church.

And if you're a woman, pitch your voice as low as you comfortably and naturally can. (As we age,hearing loss at hgihger frequencies tends to occur more rapidly than at lower, making men generally easier to hear for an aging population.)

But all of that is martha-ing.
First and last, as a reader or lector, remember that you are praying, not acting.

Get your mary on.

Thoughts on Morning Rosary

When I was a kid the Rosary bothered me something fierce, its lack of symmetry drove me crazy - whaddya MEAN we say the "Glory be" on the "space" between the little beads and the big bead? then what do we say on the other little space before the next bunch of little beads? whaddya mean "nothing, we only say prayers on the beads"? you just told us we say the "Glory be" on the space!

This problem only became more dire when as an adult  I moved to a parish where what I think is called "the Fatima prayer" was also squeezed onto that tiny bit of chain or cord where the Glory be was already causing an irritating imbalance. (And don't even get me stared on the parish that added an ejaculation that began "Eucharistic Heart of Jesus," after the more common one.)

And what about that little part that's like an alle leading in to a circular drive? I get that we might go once, or three times, or even, now, four around the loop, but don't we need to EXIT???!??#?!?? where are the prayers at the end to lead us past the one-big-three-small-one-big pathway and back to the little Crucifix?
This doesn't make sense!

Not sure why this was ever a problem, I am someone who never squares my furniture or chotchkas, I also place things diagonally or off-center...

At one point, I was even considering making up my own arrnagement of prayers to take care of those worrisome beads to get myself out of Rosary-land when I finished.

But anyway, I got over it.

But I'm me, I found other things to get my back up over.

You know, that woman who insists on saying "you" instead of "Thy" on her decades, every church has one. (And yes, I can hear the lower case "y.")

I cured myself of that irritation, (okay, almost cured, vestiges of vexation linger,) by reminding myself at every "you" that I do not allow myself to be similarly annoyed at the people who say "Ghost" instead of "Spirit," and fair's fair, principles are principles. I have to try to be consistent as I think, why in tarnation doesn't everyone in the world do things the way I want them done?  apply rules.

So now I try to be loving toward and amused by everyone. (Well, no, of course I don't mean EVERYone, just the people who gather for the Rosary before Mass. I'll work my way up to the rest of humanity.)

Wouldn't that be great, to grow LESS cranky as I age?

I am really tickled by the lovely little elderly woman who makes three syllables of "amongst," as if it were a superlative.
Mary's not just among, or even amongst the rest of us women, she's the amongest among us!

Why should I go to the theater for sex and violence, when I can get that at home?

Odd article in the New York Times about the problem of sexual harassment in the theater.
It is slanted slightly in the direction of The Actor's Union Doesn't Do Enough About It And Needs New Rules.
And it rightly notes that stage managers, (besides one they referenced as hitting on a complainant himself,) are members of Equity yet also a part of management, and that the main objective is almost always going to be letting the Show Go On, so maybe not the best person address a problem reported by a young(er) less connected victim?
Well, yeah.

But how could a journalist tackle this subject and not even mention, perhaps, not even know about, the existence of The Deputy? AEA always has a deputy or two in every union production.
Confidential, usually experienced in and knowledgeable about, and often actually IN, the vulnerable performer's very condition, and required to represent the POV of no one but the performers and their union.

So for all the interviews he may have conducted, I don't think Patrick Healey really researched his subject with much care.

But I am more bothered that the story that opens the article is... well, it doesn't really illustrate the problem they're trying to present, at least to this reader.
A woman slaps her boyfriend.
The man later slaps her.
She goes to rehearsal with a black eye and finds out that he is more valuable to the production than she is.
As someone who's gotten my share of black eyes, and given and received unfortunate stage bruises, (including mistimed hits that really connected,) I have never known a slap to cause a black eye.
And in the article, indeed, it seems not to have been the slap per se that had visible results, but that his slap had sufficient force to knock her down.
At the end of the anecdote, what I take away is that the woman did not feel that what had happened rose to the level of meriting the attention of law enforcement.
She did seem to feel the incident was worth the man losing his job over, or something....
You see, she didn't want to leave the production, but she didn't want to be forced to be around him, and well... he was in the production, they were portraying lovers. So, absent a serious re-thinking of Shakespeare's intent, and a re-staging, I guess she wanted him fired.

But she also, apparently, in a Things That Make You Go Huh????? detail, didn't even think the blow and the injury was sufficient to cause a break-up, at least not for a while, since several months later, the production is changing venues, by which I mean GOING TO ANOTHER COUNTRY, and their relationship is "all but over."
"All but over?"

It is gravely wrong for a man to strike a woman, I'm not defending that. From the details given I think the shmuck should have at least spent the night in a cell. But it does not seem that he intended to do any more damage to her than she had intended to do to him. So I'm not certain the woman shouldn't have spent some time in the hoosegow a few nights earlier.
And I'm damned sure, unless she is emotionally or mentally damaged in some way that precludes her being let out without a keeper, she should have left his sorry carcass with a little more dispatch.

Like, that night.

Is she not capable of caring for herself? of making rational life decision?
It seems she is.
So why... Omiwerd, i can't believe I am about to stick up for a producer!!!!!.... why, in her mind, is it up to the producer to do for her in her professional life, what she did not even bother to do in her private life?
Man up, woman!

And I know I shouldn't extrapolate overarching sociological principles and predictions from one situation, ("the plural of anecdote is not 'data',") but I fear these sorts of problems are going to become more and more common and more and more unsolvable as the notions of license and privacy and consent and restraint become ever more tangled in our society's collective mind and psyche.

Look at the idiotic notion of teaching children in sex education about consent, that an elementary schoolchild should say "no" to "unwanted touch." (so if the kid's okay with it, full speed ahead?)
Or the main-streaming of violent, deviant practices masquerading as romance?
Or the granting of adult autonomy, (with concomitant money and opportunity,)  to people who are simultaneously encouraged to prolong their adolescence.
People, young people especially, are consistently told that all is acceptable, all is permitted, everything is morally neutral, and nothing is anyone elses concern - and they are shamed, (or even prosecuted,) if they disagree. And yet time after time, consequences seem to give evidence that all that old-fashioned conventional wisdom and morality was, uhm.... right?
A link on the front page of the Times tells us that a college is "trying to balance student safety with open-mindedness after 12 were hospitalized last month," from overdoses.
How's that working out for ya?

The Pin Has No Point

I know this is partly hagitude on my part, but social media seem to be created to fulfill needs that nobody feels, in fact, THAT NOBODY HAS.

I sign up for everything, register for everything, because a friend wants you to see or read something, and  before one can observe the paucity of content, there one is - signed up.
And then I hardly ever return again.
Okay, Twitter is hella funny because the boneheadedness and/or arrogance of some people is oft spread about to the amusement of others, (cf.: Josh Groban's most significant contribution to modern life).
It offers those with Mobius Personality Disorder*, (not to be confused with Mobius syndrome,) an outlet and those who have it not, mirth.
And it can be an efficient way, pretty much all in one place, to see what's new in the topics and ongoing events one then needs to go elsehwere to actually see.
But Vine?
Stupid stupid, stupid. (Says the person who just linked to a video - do and observe all things whatsoever the Pharisees tell you, but do not follow their example.....)
And Facebook allow you to disseminate or gather family and circle news quickly.
Okay.
But Pinterest?
One does a quick search, how do I cook/where can I buy/what's the best way to? and now the first Gazillion links turn out to be nothing but pictures of what you seek. You'll probably have to follow a half dozen more links to find the actual recipe/merchant/instructions.
(I'm sure my problem with Pinterest is a result of my having misunderstood one simple but crucial thing about the process - but I feel like ranting, nonetheless. It's good for the constitution, and ones circulation, and possibly ones collagen production to rant on a regular basis. In fact, my older sister has thereby become my younger sister.)


*The symptoms of Mobius Peronality Disorder being all surface, one-sided, self-referential, no boundaries, and thinking everything begins and ends with ones self. Again, cf.: Josh Groban's most significant contribution to modern life. I have a friend who likes to quote himself. Literally. "Blah, blah, blah, or as I like to say..." and he then repeats a bon mot mediocre we've already heard from him several times, committing that cardinal sin of witty society, as described by Stendahl in Red and the Black, IIRC, of bringing a ready made epigram into the conversation. 

(I think that asterisk may have introduced the most pretentious thing I have ever written.)

Oh, how I hate to get up in the morning.....

No parish in the area seems to have an evening weekday Mass, or even a lunchtime Liturgy, so for the rest of my life, okay, for the foreseeable future, I figure to be hauling my carcass out of bed before I would wish.
Besides, for all my complaints this is now My Parish, so I don't partifularly want to get into the habit of Going Elsewhere.
My parish. You know how that feels.
And I have in effect inherited my Mother's seat for weekday mornings, and her place in reciting decades of the Rosary.
So beyond my own devotion, I am drawn to these things by nostalgia, and love for her in whose memory I perform these tasks.
It's like my compulsion to root for Rafael Nadal.

(Seriously, I think Rafa ranked somewhere between the Blessed Mother and St Casimir or St Adalbert on her "devoted to..." list. Maybe ahead of Placido Domingo. Hmmm.... I just noticed - Spaniards.)
But I digress.
Anyway, I'm trying to embrace my hagitude, own my geezerhood, celebrate my cronosity - BE THE VIRAGO I WAS INTENDED TO BE.

I'm old and therefore I am doomed to keep old people hours.
There, I said it.
I've always been a night owl, so the worst part of getting up is not staying up.
Hence, I miss things like this delight from Jimmy Kimmel and Josh Groban:

Mardi Gras? How About Février Gras? Oh, Heck, L'année Gras!

(No, patently I do not speak French, can read it a very little.)
From the same thread as referenced below, a usually sharper-than-that commentator explains that pre-Lent, ( the existence of which startled me when I went to an EF 2 years ago and saw purple, and didn't get to attempt to sing along on the Gloria I had finally learned,) is pretty much moot, since it "act[ed] as a counterpoint to Carnival revelries that now mostly survive only as tourist spectacle here and there."

Ha!
It seems to me that the license and extravagance of the festivities that once might have preceded Lent for a few short weeks are now a world-wide, 24/7/52 phenom.

There's almost always a Dakota Johnson or Kardashian or Beyonce or a Channing Tatum to be seen serving as.... a bead target, Mr.

 

In this country at least, "binge" has ceased to be a pejorative.
And there is not one night of the year that you couldn't find groups of  merry-makers in any city in the US, behaving and dressed in a way that not that long ago would have brought a blush to the cheek of the mayor of Rio.

"Survive?" No, the "Carnival revelries" are doing just fine, thank you, in fact, thriving,  propagating like rabbits, as a pope might say.

Closed Captioning and New Words

Okay, first, I know closed captioning is only ever even vaguely correct.

Now, as Himself becomes ever more troubled by ambient noise; and as we both realize The Young Folk and The Ethnic Minorities and The Racial Minorities will always, in a patois of which we will never recognize the slang and idioms because by the time we elderly learn them they will be passe, (but thanks for "keeping it 100," Larry Wilmore,) be incomprehensible; and as road traffic, especially during "season",  increases and will always continue to increase such that that the probability of a diesel truck or a motorcycle going by at the exact moment that dialogue providing an important plot point in a movie is spoken; and  since we watch ever more English imports; and since sound mixing now prizes 'splosions and auto-tuned background music over repartee; and finally, as diction as practiced by (especially American) actors becomes ever sloppier -- we will pretty much ALWAYS have the captioning on if it is available.

(Okay, and Mindy Kaling talks wicked fast.)

But I have to know --

When did "alright" become a word?

"That's MY Seat" - Confessions of a Weekday-Mass Attendee

I think I've written about this before, how surprised and amused I was, not that long ago, by PIPs thrown into medium dudgeon by arriving at Mass to find that "their" seat was taken, and how surprised and amused I was shortly thereafter to find how easily I, on weekdays, and Himself and I on Sunday mornings slipped into the same kind of thinking.

This mindset and the calculations it makes necessary, ("we could leave for church at five after, and get our pew, but there's a pancake breakfast, so to get our parking space....", I am not making this up, this was my unacknowledged train of thought a few weeks back, HOW CAN WE POSSIBLY CARE ABOUT WHICH PARKING SPACE WE GET???????????) are made even more complex by the fact that this area has many, many seasonal inhabitants.

Hmmm, they've been here longer than we have, but they're only resident for 3 months in the winter, shouldn't we have dibs on....?

The old-timers are a touch more indulgent to us than they were because they recognize me now The Reader We Can Always Hear.

On weekdays, it's a smaller group, of course, but we are no less territorial. Since I first attended with The Rose, I have "inherited" her spot --  I have learned that if I don't sit, not just in the pew, but in the section of the pew that was "hers" and is now "mine", when the lady who leads the Rosary before Mass glances around for someone to call upon for a decade, literally, I CAN NOT BE SEEN. (This is despite my being significantly taller than most of the people in the area and very distinctive looking, for reasons i won't go into.)

When construction was going on in the church, Himself found it terribly funny that ALL the Mass-goers, at least those who arrived around when we did, took up exactly the same relative seat in the parish hall.
I also learned that in Church, when instead of pews there are individual seats, just as in the movie theater, guys are required by their membership to leave a "homo seat."
(I have been assured by my friends who are, that use of that phrase is not offensive. Feel free to instruct me to the contrary.)

This morning, I had no special task at Mass, but had to return something to the sacristy, so when I arrived at Church, I went in by a different door. I sat on the other side of the nave, so that I could observe when someone arrived and opened the sacristy.

After the Rosary, and after I had preformed my little errand, I returned to my unaccustomed pew, on the Mary-, rather than the Joseph-side, knelt, marked my place in the Magnificat, began to read through a reflection.... nope!

Felt wrong, I had to get up and cross to MY seat, which people had left open for me.

What's the female version of a "codger"? "Crone" is too degogatory, and "biddy" implies a kind of sweet, harmless loquacity.

Anyway, now I are one....

'Cause That's What the Theater-going Experience Needs

Himself alerted me to this, it doesn't bother me particularly in this case, because, well.... Mamma Mia

But the handwriting is on the wall, "public entertainment" is a different animal than it was just a short time ago, and it will not be getting better any time soon if ever.

Words That Mean Their Opposites

It's a grand old tradition, of course- "trim" can mean either to remove the unnecessary parts, or to add them, no?
"Cleave" is to both adhere to and to split part.

And then there's that deliberately misappropriaiting words to eman their opposite, the better to cause obfuscation to ones elders, ones richers or ones sociallyadvantagedbydintofbirthorracers...

"Bad" means better than good and "sick" is  a gamer o fanboys highest compliment.

But what about "janky"?

Compliment or pejorative?

I am so old.

Feeling Not Unlike Margaret Dumont

Every time there is a fracas about some "raunchy" performance on TV, or complaint about a hit song with "obscene" lyrics, or hand-wringing about the "indecent" clothes won by someone, my initial reaction is, or rather, WAS,  that the person wailing and gnashing his teeth is being granny.

When will I learn?

You see, I've checked out a number of performances recently from concerts or awards shows on broadcast TV that were brought to my attention, and.... yup.

Filth.

I've glanced at at the slogans on T-shirts worn by little children......beyond crude; or the dresses worn by young women to weddings and even funerals......  shockingly suggestive.

I've been in a store or mall and suddenly been able to understand the lyrics of the background noise.... vile and coarse beyond belief.


Pardon me while I go clutch my pearls.

Oh, the times! Oh, the manners!

The "Church of the Chickens" and a Breeze That Sounds Like Gregorian Chant

I am a lazy slattern, but I am thinking about walking "The Way".

For a while now, I've been noticing things, stories about the Camino, pictures, movies, o-hand mentions -- that kind of synchronicity is how events in my life find their beginnings, it seems.

This article popped up on a search for something, can't remember what.... (chant, maybe?)

And actually, lazy or not, I'm a good walker.

Poor Himself, I dragged him to the cliffs of Moher, and in Glastonbury, up the Tor, and then to see the Thorn, along a path rightly called "Wearyall."

It's his code now for putting up with my suggestions.
"I'll follow you up the hill."

Don't think he could do this, though, (although the wine fountain might be a draw...)

Happen there's another pilgrimage the two of us could undertake.

Something to think about.
But maybe I'm just too old.

"Gone To Chicago"

I often, for some reason, don't know, done it my whole life, don't like to trying to explain where some obscure place is, so instead of making it part of the explanation, I just use the name of whatever is nearb and might be known.

Last month,  Himself and I told our cohorts in ministry, some staff, and the nursing home congregation that we'd see'em in a few weeks, we were heading for Chicago.

Alas.
We did not know, when we told them this, that "going to Chicago" was the nursing home residents' euphemism for "dying."

It caused some unnecessary consternation.

When we returned from the Colloquium, etc., I found someone I had often cajoled into conversation, and visited with, had gone to Chicago.

She was a tiny, feisty woman,often  mean as a snake, who was constantly wishing her fate on EMTs who helped her, threatening and taking swings at people, and loudly complaining that the food was lousy and they never fed her anyway, (it isn't and they do.)

She was cranky, but never outright mean to me, the worst she did was yell, "Too much damn Jesus for me!" one day while I was reading the Epistle and storm, or rather, wheel out.

Understandable, since she was Jewish, (though she knew it was a Communion service when she had asked to come, whihc she did often -- anything to relieve the killing boredom, I imagine.)

But nature abhors a vacuum, and the universe has sent a replacement who is more than her equal -- and a biter besides.





We all have all of that in us.


And we'll all go to Chicago one day.

It is a great gift that I was asked to help out with this ministry. It has been a source of great healing for me.

I'd forgotten that it's not just on Sundays that Catholic think they "own" their seats.

Our church is being painted so for weekday mornings, Mass is in a smaller chapel. The past few days there have been several young mothers with several young children a piece, perhpas some kind of  usual daycare they shared has come to an end?
In any case -- they are attentive and quiet, and I turned to a gentleman whom I know, (although not by name,) and smiled, "A lot of children!"

Yes, he hissed, and yesterday some of OUR people had to stand...

"Our people"?

We're Catholics, I thought ALL of us are "our people."

Please, Lord, I'm already crankier than I ned to be, I can see myself doing it as I get older, don't let me turn into one of them!

(I will NOT complain about the blue paint they've chosen....)