Signs of the season

We put a Harris/Walz sign out in our yard the other day.  We have decided not to take it in at night. Every morning I get up and check to see if it is still there.  So far, so good.  

The Unfriendly Republican across the street usually has signs in his yard.  No Trump sign yet, although it is still early. The UR is Catholic, which I have determined because he has a statue of St. Francis of Assisi amidst the bushes in front of his house.  I still wonder why a good Catholic would support a liar, a cheat, a rapist?  I know, I'm naive. The thing is, when I was a good Catholic I took all that dogma seriously.  I believed that good was to be strived for, and evil was obviously to be triumphed over. 

Their Jesus never said don't have an abortion, but he most certainly said to love our neighbor as ourselves.  It's as simple as that, you know?

Bartolomé Bermejeo, Saint Michael Triumphs over the Devil, The National Gallery, London

Metaphysical woo woo

I often think of my paternal Grandma. I love her beyond words. Well, maybe I'm being dramatic. I could probably describe how much I love her in any number of ways. 

I could write a litany to describe her. I like litanies, especially the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary. A litany drills you right down to the core of an archetype. Words of power and images of faith. After an invocation was read by the priest, the congregation would reply in unison the following supplication: "Pray for us!" If you could pay attention long enough, it was magical. Not much different than a Babylonian prayer to Ishtar.

Those old fathers of the church really knew what they were doing on a deep psychological level. In addition, the BVM litany gave you an indulgence of 7 years off your time in Limbo! But I digress. Grandma.  

She was Protestant to my Catholic. Raised Southern Baptist, she became Pentecostal in middle-age. She could talk in the language of the angels if the spirit moved her. I was scared of her church and only went with her once. You may think pre-Vatican II Catholicism was metaphysical woo woo, but that's only because you never went to Grandma's church. Still, she believed. Her life wasn't easy and it got her through a lot.

I never told her I lost my faith. How could I?

The nuns said non-Catholics wouldn't go to heaven. They told us lots of crazy stuff, trying to make sure we'd never think for ourselves. That's how I knew religious dogma was purposely manipulative, because my Grandma was the holiest person I ever met. If Grandma couldn't go to heaven, then there must not be a heaven. 

To be fair, Pentecostals believe Catholics are a cult and will burn in hell. With 7 Catholic grandchildren, I wonder what Grandma thought about that? 

A Mother Goddess if I ever saw one!

Good Old Matthew

I've been meaning to write about the political trauma in this country. I certainly live it everyday, and have been as active as I can manage without losing my mind.

I am heartened by the outpouring of public support fighting to end the cruel policy of stealing children from their parents at the Texas/Mexico border. I have even learned a new bible quote (is that what you call them?) that is now my favorite. I use it to shut down hateful, heartless, soulless trolls: Matthew 25:31:46. 

You know things are getting complicated when a heathen agnostic like me starts reading the bible to get clear on what is and what is not Christ-like. But I was raised pre-Vatican II Catholic. That stuff (the golden rule, morality, aversion to sin) never really goes away. At least it never went away for me. What I don't understand is why so many Fox News Christians don't follow the teachings of Christ? What's that all about? It is almost like they are following the anti-Christ, ya know? At any rate, they certainly are giving Christianity a bad name. Oh well, their choice.

Here's a fun meme, ha! Feel free to download and share it widely. And then vote as if your immortal soul depended on it come November.  See, I can still talk that talk!

A Bald Faced Lie

The little girl in me wanted to believe in Pope Francis, but she also wants to believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. I try to keep her in check because she is still a child and liable to get us in trouble. Still, I have to admit I have liked a lot of what Pope Francis has said and done since becoming Pope. I was following Francis in the media, with hope even, wondering what he would do next. Many of us ex-Catholics had been keeping an eye on him. Then he met with Kim Davis. 

For those of you from outside the States who may wonder what I am talking about, Kim Davis is an Evangelical Christian who is a minor elected official, a county clerk.  Among other things she is responsible for issuing marriage licenses in Rowan County, Kentucky.  In June, the U.S. Supreme court made the decision allowing gay people in all 50 States to get married. That has been problematic for Evangelical Christians in the so-called Bible Belt. After the ruling, Kim Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples in Rowan County because she would have to sign her name to the official document. She decided to break the law and ignore that fact that she was elected to perform a specific job because she does not want to break “God’s Law.” Hmmm, I do have an awful lot to say about religious arrogance and know-it-all-ism, but not right now.

Interestingly, because of the way the law works in Kentucky she cannot be fired for refusing to perform her duties.  She earns a lot of money for that relatively underprivileged part of the county ($80,000/year!) and refuses to just do the right thing and simply quit a job she feels she cannot perform.  Instead she wanted the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky to allow her to refuse to perform that portion of her job based on religious liberty.  The court refused and ultimately threw her in jail for contempt of court when she continued to deny gay couples marriage licenses.  She was released when she agreed to allow her underlings to issue licenses without her signature.  Unfortunately, she has not just gone away.  She is hanging on to the notoriety and keeps working her 15 minutes of fame. 

Perhaps most troubling is that she has allowed herself to become a poster child for the political aspirations of the extreme end of the religious right. Her lawyers belong to a firm that is officially listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  

Before I go on let me just say that I am absolutely in favor of religious freedom.  I disagree with her refusal to issue marriage licenses to gay people, but I support her right to believe otherwise.  However, we live in a country that believes in the separation of church and state. She cannot choose to disobey the law of the land because of her religious beliefs. Polygamist sects would have a fit if she got do do that and they didn't.

In my humble opinion, since her job duties have lawfully changed and the job now offends her religious sensibilities she should quit the job. I think that would be the honorable and obvious thing for her to do.

Instead, Kim and her legal counsel used the recent visit of Pope Francis to the U.S.A. to manipulate the American public, to disrespect and embarrass both the Pope and the Catholic Church, and to further her cause. How did they do it? They tricked and blindsided the Grand Poobah of a major international religious institution. Wow!

Because of the liberal ideas Francis has been spewing there are many conservative elements within the Church hierarchy who dislike him.  Apparently they are also actively working against him.  A treacherous priest in charge of arranging meetings for him while he was in the USA seems to have colluded with Kim’s lawyers and got her a meeting with Francis. Then Kim and the lawyers went public with the meeting, making it appear that Pope Francis agreed with and was supportive of Kim. It is possible he did not even know who she was.

They lied and ruthlessly used the head of a world religion to further their cause.  Why would they feel comfortable doing something like that?  With all their self-righteous God talk, didn't they feel even a smidgeon of guilt about lying to millions of people?  How would they feel if a Catholic lied and used the Grand Poobah of their religion in a similar way?

In my opinion that is not their biggest transgression. Their biggest "accomplishment" was sewing seeds of doubt in the minds of untold numbers of non or ex-Catholic people about Pope Francis. Some will never fully believe in his sincerity again.  Some, like me, continue to feel foolish and gullible even after the revelation that Francis had been deceived and used. It was a bit of a wake-up call.

I will admit I was charmed by the pre-Kim Davis Pope Francis. That little girl in me really wanted to like him.  She wanted to forget that he was the head of a religion that does not allow women to become priests, sees human sexuality as a necessary evil, is adamantly against birth control, and more things I do not agree with. What was I thinking?  Well, of course I was not thinking.  I was letting the little girl inside my head take charge, which is never a good idea.  I’m thinking she might have some Daddy issues…

When the lie first hit the media, Francis-friendly liberals all over the country were howling with indignation that they had been "played" by Pope Francis.  Smug conservatives kept saying, “What did you liberals expect?  This is the Catholic Church.  Francis is the head of it.  He has not changed any Church Doctrine.”  Yeah, well, you made your point. Shut up already! I hear you!

So anyway, if Kim and her lawyers had not met with the Pope and tried to use his words to manipulate the media, the modern world might have become a little different.  Imagine!  Some people may have continued believing Pope Francis was a sincere holy man, a heroic figure.  Some might eventually have found their way back to the Church, for better or for worse.  But The Vatican would have us believe that Kim and her lawyers did lie.  If that is true, as a direct result of Team Kim lying and deceiving us the world has now changed in an altogether different way.  Standards have been lowered.  The ministry of Pope Francis has been diminished after his ambush by Kim Davis and her Merry Men.

For the fun of it, let us imagine there is life after death and we will all have to account for our actions while we were on earth.  Man, I would hate to be in their shoes and try to explain and justify THOSE particular sins to St. Peter at the pearly gates.  I am waiting for the graphic novel.  It should be epic.

 

Wait a Minute!

Hey, wait a minute!  Do you remember last time when I said there were no further incidents at the nursing home?  I forgot something.

This post is a bit macabre.  Please note I am a fallen away, pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic, so I can quite literally go medieval on your ass.  I stopped going to church in the late 1960s when the Catholic Church instituted reforms to modernize the mass.  Because I stopped being a Catholic at that point in time my religiosity has never been altered or modernized.  I take my spirituality straight up and I yearn for dead languages, strong incense, and Gregorian chants.  It is a religion that no longer exists in reality, but it is still and always a part of who I am.  I am culturally Catholic in the same way that non-religious Jews are culturally Jewish.  There is nothing I can do about it.  If you do not want to see this side of me then please do not read the following.  Wait for my next post where I promise I will leave death and dying aside.  I may even write about the beautiful weather we are having.

So much was stolen from my mother's room at the nursing home, at the assisted living place she lived in before she was moved to the nursing home, and at a rehabilitation center she was in for a short time a few years ago after surgery.  I am not sure if the wretched thieves were aides, nurses, roommates, or other wandering residents - but multiple people stole things from her rooms in each place.  It is a sad fact of life at nursing homes.  We learned to move anything of value to my sister ERB's house.  What innocents we were at first.  I still have a hard time imagining how someone could feel they are entitled to steal an old woman's belongings when she is at her weakest and most vulnerable.  The assisted living home where she lived for about 5 years before being moved to the nursing home last year was the worst.  Drugs and candy were always disappearing.  Before we figured it out someone stole her diamond engagement ring out of her dresser drawer.  It was supposed to have gone to my baby sister, ERB, as a reward for spending all those years being her principal caregiver.  You might ask, "Why did you let her take her jewelry to a place like that?"  I might answer, "Try telling an older woman who is still in her right mind that she can no longer keep her engagement ring with her when she moves into a private, one-bedroom apartment in an assisted living home."  

The coup de grâce came when she was dying.  Someone stole both of her favorite rosaries from her home-room (let us call it the "living-room") while she lay dying in a different room (let us call that room the "dying-room") in another wing of the nursing home.  She was moved from her "living-room" right after she had the stroke, and for the following week she was in the "dying-room," a large private room where the family could maintain a private vigil.  Her two rosaries were always draped over a picture frame next to her bed in the "living-room" so she could reach them if needed.  One was her special rosary; the one she specifically stated, in writing, was to be buried with her.  It was given to her by one of her sisters, and it had been blessed by Pope John Paul II; a man who was also a victim of Parkinson's Disease.  He died, has been proposed for sainthood, and will eventually be canonized.  He was an absolute rockstar to my Mom. 

We should have retrieved those two rosaries and put them by her death bed, I know, I know.  If only I could turn back the hands of time.  We were all a mess, though.  I must confess no one thought of it.  We were overwhelmed.  We rarely went down to her "living-room." I could probably come up with a few more excuses.  However, in retrospect I must say: "mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa," which roughly translates from the Latin as "It's my fault, it's my fault, it is REALLY my fault." 

I know theft is a crime, but please humor me for a few minutes while I consider the act as a sin.  This rosary theft is a sin not only against my sweet mother and her family, it is a transgression against the nursing home community.  The wretched thief exists, but since we do not know who it is we begin to suspect everyone.  I really hate that, because the vast majority of the staff and residents there are kind and good.  Putting her/his co-workers under the cloud of suspicion is a whopper of a sin, way bigger than a mere venial sin, it is a mortal sin for sure.  This sin impacts on many innocent people in many ways.  The injustice almost takes my breath away considering the complex repercussions of one casual, selfish, voluntary act.

I like to assume the wretched thief was a twisted Catholic AND a moron who thought she/he was entitled to a memento of my mother.  Why else would someone take two rosaries?  Because I am a sinner myself, I choose not to forgive the wretched thief.  Not now.  Hopefully someday, but not quite yet.  It is too soon.  Instead,  I hope this sin haunts the wretched thief in the dark, disturbing her/his sleep continuously until the wretched thief returns the rosaries to the social worker.  Then I might forgive her/him.  Okay, we all know that's not gonna happen.  It is an idle fantasy of a grieving child.  It is only in the irrationality of my grief that this fantasy makes me feel better.  I hope for justice and, okay - make me say it: revenge.  But even if the rosaries were returned, what would we do with them?   We will not dig up the casket to put the rosary in her hands if it suddenly appears.  She is holding a different rosary now, anyway.  It is just not the one she wanted. The time has passed to make this right for my mother.  Still, I wish I could let this go.  

I have not been a practicing Catholic since the late 1960's; however, it is all coming back to me now.  My better self would pray for a miracle,  hoping the wretched thief would come to her/his senses, return the rosary, and do penance for her/his sin.  Unfortunately, my better self seems to be missing in action along with the rosaries, diamond ring, other jewelry, knicknacks, pills, candy, and cookies that have disappeared over the years.  For now, I look for justice.  Still, what is justice in this instance?

Hopefully I will eventually realize that if I am still angry about this then I am foolishly allowing the wretched thief to continue to hurt me.  My anger merely keeps the sin alive.  True forgiveness involves freeing oneself from anger and allowing the sin to rest only with the sinner.   Perhaps that is justice?  I don't know.

My Mother's Daughter

About 15 years ago my mother moved from the family home to a small apartment. She made the change a few years after my father died.  For over 35 years she lived in the old barn-like house that 6 of my parents’ 7 children at least partially grew up in.  Of course it was not a barn, but it resembled one so I will henceforth refer to it as the Barn House.

There was 20 years between my oldest sister, CHD, and my youngest brother, WW. CHD was grown up when we moved into the Barn House.  She only lived there for a couple of months before she found an apartment and got on with her adult life. I must have been about 12 when we moved in.  I was in 7th grade.  There was a lot of living that made THAT old house a home!  At first there were only five children living there, because CHD had moved out in 1965.   Good Catholic that she was, my mother was soon pregnant again and we had a sixth child living with us (the 7^th sibling) in the Barn House by 1966.  In The Borg society, I am referred to as 3 of 7.

When Mom made the decision to move, I went to Northern Indiana to assist my siblings in paring down her belongings.   The goal was to keep only the “essentials” enabling her to fit into a one-bedroom apartment.  My sweet mother is a fully realized pack rat.  She saves everything because everything is on her “essentials” list.  It was always chaos in that house, but after 35 years the Barn House was jam-packed with memories and odd treasures.  Old pictures were in every drawer, and filled old purses and boxes tucked away in the back of her closets.  Cookbooks were stuffed with additional handwritten recipes.  Her bibles, St. Joseph Missal (Latin/English) and post Vatican II missal (English only) were chock full of genealogical goldmines in the form of funeral cards and obituary clippings.  She saved every saint medal, holy card, rosary, ceramic Blessed Virgin Mary statue, and wall crucifix her kids and grandkids ever gave her.  She has 7 children and 16 grandkids so that made for a lot of Catholic tchotchkes.  I do not know how many years worth of braided palm leaves we found.  For those of you who do not know, you get palm leaves when you go to mass on Palm Sunday.  You take them home, braid them and put them up in the house.  It is a Catholic thing.  I actually had one up on my bulletin board in the NYS house. Why not?  I threw it away last February before WE moved. Actually, I regret throwing that braided palm away.   What was I thinking?

It was fun wading through each room of my parents’ house one last time.  Of course I wanted to help my Mom and my siblings, but I must confess my primary purpose was to wallow in my mother’s things for the last time. I savored every drawer full of "stuff" and every room full of junk. That "stuff" was soul deep.  It was about my past.  It was about my parents’ life together.  It was about my mother’s neurosis. It was all a living testament to my mother’s strengths and weaknesses.  I wondered if our lives would change once her "stuff" was gone.  Interestingly, it was also about old time Roman Catholicism, the kind of mystical/devotional life every Catholic was taught to observe back before Vatican II modernized the church in the mid 1960’s. I have to stop before this post turns into my standard rant against Vatican II changes.  It always shocks people who mistakenly presume my normal liberal views would support saying the Mass in the vernacular.  That rant will have to wait for another post.

Unlike my more pragmatic siblings, I could not fault her when I found stacks of old church calendars in a corner of the kitchen.  These are calendars that each parish church gives out free to parishioners every year. The pictures of saints, the BVM, and her illustrious son were reason enough to keep them. They were beautiful.  There are many things one might fault the Roman Catholics for, but their art is not one of them.  For crying out loud, wouldn’t it be a venial sin to throw out things like that anyway?  OK, I threw them away when she was not looking, but still – I was so happy to get my grubby little hands on them for a few minutes. I stood firm in defending this collection, although I did kind of wonder why the pile was stacked on top of chocolate covered cherry boxes filled with old recipes and newspaper clippings that were stored underneath a chair pushed in a corner of the kitchen.  But then again, the opposite corner held a cart filled with old newspapers and magazines.  Maybe it was about balance, or a feng shui decision meant to increase the flow of favorable energy in the room?  I am willing to give the old lady the benefit of the doubt.  I love her madly and I find her quirkiness endearing. 

Believe it or not, I found a handwritten Pillsbury Flour Contest recipe submission that my maternal grandmother (who died before I was born…) submitted in the 1940s.  It was lying between two magazines in a pile of many.  I wish I knew how it got there.  If I had just picked up the entire pile of magazines and dumped them in the trash this recipe would have been lost forever.  Talk about treasure!  I probably slowed everyone down because I insisted on looking at every knickknack and perusing old recipes to my heart’s content.  I did not care, though.  On that day I imagined myself an archaeologist of sorts, and I am nothing if not self-indulgent.  It made the old lady happy, too.  She was thrilled that I valued her stuff.  I was having fun and I might even have been her favorite child for a few fleeting moments there.  When you are 3 of 7 you appreciate those fleeting moments.

I took pictures of rooms and furniture and piles of junk.  My younger siblings thought I was nuts.  They seemingly had no nostalgic feelings about the Barn House.  They just wanted to throw everything away so the house could be cleaned out, cleaned up and sold.   I was shocked and disturbed.  Why wasn’t I practical and focused?  Could it be that I am like my mother?  Oh, HELL no!

The best part was when three of us went through the linen closet with my Mom present.   She had a huge upstairs hallway closet with lacquered wooden doors that opened up like French doors.  This linen closet was wide enough that all four of us could stand and sort through the shelves at the same time.  We found many linens, very few of them useable.  There were old tablecloths with holes in or stains on them, sheets so threadbare you could see through them, and old towels and doilies that were tattered and torn.  Unfortunately, our sweet mother did not see them in the same way we did.  These things held different meanings for her.  She became agitated and defensive, not wanting to throw anything away.  Her standard response if we posed the question “Can we throw this away?” was “No, it is still good, someone could use that.”  She displayed classic Depression Era post-traumatic stress syndrome with subsequent hording behavior. It was amazing to observe at close hand. Her eyes were wild. She positioned herself behind us so she could see exactly what each one of us was doing.  She pulled things off the trash pile if we tried to sneak them there without asking her first.  We made four piles on the floor: the trash pile, the Goodwill pile, the give-to-a-family-member pile, and the keep-for-the-new-apartment pile.  I think you can imagine how much went on the trash pile. 

After 15 minutes our sweet mother could no longer stand the sight of us.  We took a break.  We three siblings conspired when Mom went to the bathroom (do not get me started on her bathroom…). We decided to reassure her by putting the unusable things she could not bear to throw away on the Goodwill pile and then throw things away when we took them away from her house.  We also agreed to “take” many things she wanted to pass on to family that in reality no family member would possibly want, and to quietly dispose of them accordingly.  Sorting into piles became easier for all of us.  She was happy, we were happy, and the job got done.

I came home from that visit with many amazing treasures:  An aluminum potato ricer I have absolutely no memory of, the tin French fry slicer that had intrigued me my entire childhood even though I do not make French fries, a heavy metal meat grinder I will almost certainly never use, the no-tech haircutting tools my grandmother used to cut our hair as children (giving us Mamie Eisenhower bangs in the 1950s).  I foolishly brought home two boxes filled with the inexpensive Currier and Ives-style china that my Mom had painstakingly purchased piece by piece at the grocery store.  I did not want them, but it made her so happy when I said I would take them.  I also had Mom’s old Singer sewing machine even though both my daughter and I already had new machines.  I took many funeral cards and all the Blessed Virgin Mary statues that I ever bought her, despite the fact that I have not been a Roman Catholic since 1968.  It made me happy to take these things, but I found it made me sad to have it all. I am happy T and I were able to get rid of so much “stuff” this past year in anticipation of our move to Florida. That is when I finally gave the potato ricer, the china, and the old sewing machine to the Salvation Army.  They were still good.  I am sure someone is using them.