Month: December 2020

How do I achieve peace in the world? I can’t. I’m just a small being, but I can achieve peace in my heart. So I proceed. Sometimes we think all is lost, but it isn’t. If we believe in God, and believe in the Light, we will never be in darkness. My mother, who believed in God mightily, said, "the Blessed Mother will meet me, give me a big hug, and take me to Jesus." Don’t doubt that for a second.

This morning in the last daily Mass of the New Year, EWTN opened the Communion prayer with, " Lord, we pray, order our days in your peace." So how does God order our days? Have you ever noticed nature? You plant a seed and, 10 days later, 2 green sprouts emerge. In another 10 days, more green. Then we have to wait for buds. I check my flowers daily. "Yes! buds!" I danced around the bushes a week ago. Now we wait for the buds to make flowers and bloom. So God has ordered. It’s been that way for all time, unless someone upsets the sequence. If we dig them up and move them mid process we might kill them. God has ordered. Let him work. Many think of God like we might treat a Teddy Bear we sleep with. (Yes, Chuck and I have 3 Teddies on the bed!). We steal them from each other during the night. Often Teddy lands on the floor. This morning, Chuck said, "I had Teddy and then he was gone…" Tossed out in the middle of the night? No just buried deep in the covers where I shoved him in my sleep! I think sometimes we treat God like our sleeping toy. He’s grabbed and then he’s hidden often by us. He’s tossed out if we don’t agree with him. In the morning, we seek him, but often only to decorate our pillow. Grab God this New Year and hold on!!!!

Today, the end of an old year, let us pray for those who died this past year. We can deny Covid and say it’s not so bad. We can say, "The numbers are wrong," and we put ourselves at risk as some of my friends have done. I have a friend who had a big Christmas party and went to 3 others. "I’m not going to miss my family," she said. Another friend won’t wear masks no matter what. "I just don’t like a mask." Pray for those who have died and those who will die due to Covid. Don’t have a heart attack because there isn’t room in some ICUs. Let God order your life, but be obedient! Be thoughtful, kind. Make amends and do better. Take care of the earth, and praise God while you walk the earth! You are like that flower! God built you to be his instrument of shining peace. Thank God. Know God. Sing a new song! (read Psalm 96). God bless us. Angels with us. Happy New year!!!!!

Good Sunday morning! Today we celebrate the Holy Family! Imagine what it must have been like for Joseph with a wife and tiny baby born outside after traveling from Nazareth to get counted in the census. "Now," he must have been thinking, "I have to get this family home safely." But King Herod had other thoughts, and he sent his men to kill all the babies born in Bethlehem… He meant to kill future kings who might steal his reign. We also honor those Holy Innocents. What meanness can be done in the name of power and neglect of the innocent and poor. In a dream, Joseph heard, "take the baby to Egypt." So, he packed up the baby and Mama and head south into Egypt. This is all Scriptual, thank God for the evangelist Luke. But how many of us are on the road, homeless or close to it? How many today are so poor they will be homeless this week? Today is a time for us to dig deep and give, providing for the poor and homeless and finding work for the Fathers. Remember the WPA.

The Scriptural readings today (see for example Sirach 3:2-14) celebrate the Family and use words "reverence, honor, obedience, comfort, and kindness." There’s no easy way to get around it: being disobedient, dishonorable, mean, unkind, and ignoring others is NOT in God’s plan. Today is a good day to heal and forgive. To give comfort. I had to heal and forgive when I was handed the Bible in a small chapel in the Holy Land in 1991. As I read the words, "A reading from the Book of Daniel," I realized I could not continue until I let go of anger against my father. It is not easy to let go of anger. It’s much easier to hug anger to our chest. It took years to admit, "Im OK; I give up." It all started that day when God touched me.

Time to get up and move! Today, two days after Christmas, let us make a plan. As soon as you can, get to a small store like Walgreens or CVS. I bought 2 pairs of slippers for Chuck and me from Santa (Buy one get one 1/2 off) at Walgreens and now I’m going to go back and buy some more. Buy them out! Give them to a charity that donates to the poor. For us here in Lake Placid the giving places are Manna and Bridging Hope. There is also a food distributer called Foodfinder. Go! Give! Enjoy! God bless us.

We celebrate Christmas for 8 days!!!! So if I seem joyful it’s because O Come O Come Emanuel Happened!!!! He’s here. Joyfully we praise God for light and love. Then… Why do we celebrate the first day after Christmas, December 26 a death? St Stephen was stoned with the approval of a man named Saul. He was martyred for being a Christian. The story opens in Acts, "Stephen, filled with grace and power…. debated with wisdom. He looked up to heaven and saw Jesus." When he was stoned, he looked up and said, "Lord Jesus receive my spirit." What great faith! Jesus died like that too. So Christmas is a gift time of gold and myrrh. Life and death. In Matthew 10, Jesus told us to "beware of men… they will scourge you and hand you over… you will be hated. Endure and be saved." Today the Catholic Mass really digs deep and asks us to keep our eyes, not on men and men’s empty promises, but on heaven. I wonder if this year has been a time when all the love shown by hospitals has been overshadowed by the hate we have seen in the accusations and criticisms we have heard on the streets and from our televisions and from the mouths of friends we have lost. Let the spirit of Joy and love not be killed. Look out and up. I am ashamed that I have not followed up on some ideas I had to help the poor. I’m using Covid separation as an excuse. I have a friend who actively teaches young teenagers. She loves those kids and by her love and support, she is teaching them to love along with the Catechism she reads to them. My friend Charlie teaches and gives to African churches as well as to his own in Atlanta. There is a lot of poverty and hunger. Let us not be ashamed at New Years that we didn’t help. God bless us abundantly! Merry Christmas.

Yesterday we sang "O Come O come Emanuel" and today it’s our turn to "Come!". Normally churches would be bursting and singing would be loud but today… Churches are asked to stay way below 40% with no singing. We are still deep in Covid and hospitals are full. It’s amazing how looking thoughtfully and closely at a Christmas tree full of ornaments or, as I’m currently doing, looking at Hallmark’s Happy and the Yule Log… can make one forget Covid. I wrote to my friend to remind her to see if she can get her bank information into the computer this time to get the Covid assistance check sooner than the government can get around to writing a check. Those of us who file and either pay or get refund via bank access get Covid checks first. She didn’t want to talk about $$$ on Christmas, and maybe there’s a little lack of faith that our Congress can get that bill out. She might be right. That is awful when you think of the people out of work who need help… And she’s as right as anyone else. I have faith that a stimulous will come and God help us… Pray for the poor. In fact this is a time for those of us who can afford it to dig deep and give to the poor and hungry so that all will be fed this Christmas week. Watching Happy and the Yule log with 5 puppies sliding around on a shiny waxed floor, tugging at Christmas packages and ribbons really takes one’s mind off troubles. I suggest it. I used the voice thingy on my Xfinity clicker and asked for Happy Yule Log and it’s like being a kid again!!!

This morning’s Christmas celebration on EWTN was wonderful. Thank God for the Gospel of Luke! Today we read about the shepherds out in the fields. "And there was a great light. And singing!!!" "Go see what has taken place in a cave in Bethlehem!" Shepherds tell one another, "Angels told us! Glorify and Praise God and Go see!" Remember what we thought about yesterday? Mary jumping up with haste. John Leaping in his mother’s womb." Today shepherds are running to see! It’s all so simple, but we can’t hear, feel, or see it without having it in our hearts. We have to be taught. And I say, how easy it is to read the Gospel of Luke. All filled with peace, angels, lambs, cows, and a baby. What’s not to like? Go today and share what you know! Surely you can get your hands on a Bible and find the greatest story attributed to a man named Luke. Read and sing! Believe. God bless you.

What makes us leap, not with fear, as if leaping away from the frog that jumped at me when I opened the back door the other day, "Yipes! I screamed as I leaped! What was that?" A little frog sleeping in our door frame. For heavens sake! The poor guy was more afraid than I was as I leaped away from him leaping at me! And not the leaping we do when crossing the street and someone going too fast and not paying attention, bears down on us, "Yipes! Save my life from being squooshed!" No, not that leaping either! But let it be the joyful, "OK!" kind of leaping. The "Yes!" kind of leaping! The "give it all we have" kind of leaping. It’s what Mary did when an angel told her she would bear a child by the Holy Spirit. I am sure there was some measure of "Riiiggght…. the Holy Spirit…. OK tell me more." But when the angel explained the child will be called the Son of the Most High, she must have recalled the words of Samuel and Isaiah… Hannah gave birth at an awfully old age and gave the child to God. Mary might have thought as she proclaimed, "God’s will," to the angel, "So I will too." She was accepting the greatness of God as she had heard from the Old Testament. When the angel told her that her old cousin was pregnant (there’s that … "oh no she’s too old" in our minds,) but instead, Mary leaped up! She arose and started out to help her cousin. She had no doubt, rather Mary cooperated with God’s will. Giving it all she had, marching off on foot up to Jerusalem. Unafraid. Joyful. God’s grace helps us to move and to overcome fear. Grace gives us incredible strength. God gave Mary incredible strength to bear and then to give up her child. From rest, Mary leaped into action. Elizabeth and Mary sang a song of Joy that you can read in the first chapter of Luke! Let us all sing with Mary: "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord." From the womb, John leaped in his mother’s womb! Imagine he was singing: "It’s Jesus!!! Hi cousin! You will be the Lamb of God! I will die for you."

God wants our response to the angel’s greeting. He wants us to leap with joy. But many of us aren’t joyful are we? We are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Covid is over-filling our hospitals and our friends are dying. We are tired of being out of work caused by shutdowns and a worrisome economy. Tired of borrowing too much money. Political angers are wearing us down. We feel like we are pushing a big rock uphill. We try to talk, but we can’t. We disagree so badly. One Congressman said on TV, "People believe things, and they can’t be convinced otherwise. They can’t even talk about possible facts."

Our tempers are at hair trigger tension. A man walked out of a garage in Columbus, Ohio with a cell phone in his hand. Two Police officers, called for a noise complaint, arrived with no lights and sirens, their dash cam not on, their chest cameras not on, shot the man to death. This is hair trigger on the really dangerous side. What can we do right now? How can we leap up? Would that we all could turn and go, on our separate sides if need be, and find a sacred space, and kneel there. Kneel to the Christ who makes every space a sacred place. Kneel and look at the woman who quietly sacrificed herself by saying "Yes" to God. She humbly arose and went to serve her cousin. She went to the altar, and when he was 33 years old, she gave her child to God. Make a quiet place and sit there and relax. Pray for peace. One friend said that one thing on our list should be "world peace," and I answered that i want to achieve peace with my neighbor! (I’m thinking we could reach peace, but we must try to both give up our hard stances and accept God’s will rather than advocate tearing our nation apart). Pray for healing in our country to get through the next 4 years peacefully, in brotherhood. No guns. Empty hands on both sides. Healing peace. Let us sit quietly, on separate sides if need be, let us look quietly at the Christ. Let us pray for peace in our own hearts.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Some people have decorated. Some people were too late getting out and all the trees were gone. Oh there are still straggly trees out there, but this is an odd year that has made us prickly and sluggish. But at least, I’ll bet there are angels singing at a manger. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.

Remember the three wise men! The star is out tonight. All this is happening NOW! We are in a time of great grief from Covid illness and death. We are in a time of serious trouble as half the nation faces the other half with angry looks and, maybe, pitchforks. I’ve suggested separation both to save us from being infected and also to keep us from hurting each other. And still the wise men come. In myth and mystery, the wise men bear gifts befit a king (Gold and Frankincense) but also gifts used for burial (myrrh). That is why the days before Christmas are so full of hope: "The King is coming! Praise God! Emmanuel! He is the God Who Saves!" But his gift is myrrh. That spice is used to anoint the dead. God bless us. Pray and hope we can rise and stand and receive the king, and maybe we can stop being angry, but we can praise!!!! Myrrh is in our life, but so is Joy. Choose Joy! Choose Life! Choose Love. God bless us!

In 1969, Maya Angelou watched children playing Hop Scotch. Remember what was most important? Staying inside the line. If you stepped out of the box, you were out. Angelou saw life in that hopscotch game as she wrote:

Harlem Hopscotch
One foot down, then hop! It’s hot.
Good things for the ones that’s got.
Another jump, now to the left.
Everybody for hisself.

In the air, now both feet down.
Since you black, don’t stick around.
Food is gone, the rent is due.
Curse and cry and then jump two.

All the people out of work,
Hold for three, then twist and jerk.
Cross the line, they count you out.
That’s what hopping’s all about.

Both feet flat, the game is done.
They think I lost. I think I won.

The poem was written in 1969! It hit me that … It is the end of 2020 and nothing has changed. Women go to graduate school and get higher paying jobs, but do black women? Who cleans most of the houses and offices? Who is out of work and homeless with hungry children right now? Who is getting more Covid possibly because they are all crammed in tenements; no fresh air to breathe. If we would consider offering work to young black men, would that change things? Would working men begin to think they can win? We might have to take care of the women and the children. Are there any projects that need to be done in your community that you could find someone to finance? Do you have any more ideas? "Food is gone, the rent is due." What are we going to do? God bless us.

What if we all stopped shouting and made a list of 3 things we need done in the next 4 years? Here’s my list and I’ll bet you will find it close to yours as it is something we can control. Please email or text me with your items. We can do this.

1. Voter registration and voting: We hate the process; so change it: Access to the polls and manual counts with paper ballots. No machines. No algorithms (whatever they are anyway….). Keep all the ballots after counting them manually (so we will have proof).
2. Make a plan to get the entire US (350 million people 700 million shots); So we don’t end civilization.
3. Feeding starving children and mothers in the US. (Put the men to work – remember the WPA? Chuck’s Uncle JB was starving. He worked for WPA and got fed at the age of 14 to 16. Then he joined the military). If we figure a way to feed mothers and children we might just make headway against abortion.

If you have a better idea, please add to this list, but keep it at something we can do. If we make a plan… If we work the plan and pray, God will be with us. Mother Teresa did it. We don’t have to go very far to work this plan. Oh God bless us. Angels with us.

Sir Walter Scott, in a tale called "Marmion", contemplated the mess we can make when we don’t lay things straight out, but rather, we create convoluted messes that eventually lead to a "tangled web". We’ve done it with the Electoral College. In 1787, the men who wrote the Constitution put lots of checks and balances into the design for the new government so we wouldn’t get a dictatorship. The nation was big already (13 colonies stretching from Georgia to Massachusetts. I looked at an old map, and, while New Hampshire stood north of Massachusetts, Massachusetts claimed an area we know today as Maine. So the colonies stretched from the "Florida line" to Maine…). … It was quite a long trek on horseback to carry electors to New York where central government resided. …. Votes were carefully counted as the states (who all had their separate powers,) were "under" the federal protection of the President. And the electors were sent to the central government to name the president. He had a limited term and he was carefully selected by the electors. All was carefully controlled because the people did not want another king or absolute ruler, like they had in England. So today, for probably the first time, sequestered as I am, I watched the electoral voting! It was as we knew it would be as the tally has already been determined by counting on computers. (can you imagine hand counting 150 million votes? So anyhow. With yesterday’s very carefully orchestrated following of the Constitution, we still have the electors’ results to go to Congress on January 6 where Mike Pence has to name the new President. Wow! Now the count can’t change because the computers got the vote already. So many people (150 million people) are probably asking, and should ask, "Why all the hoopla? I voted. One. My husband voted. Two. etc etc… to 150 million." That seems so reasonable. We got the vote out. We counted it. The person with the most popular votes won. Period. (not always the way it was folks…) There are great cries of "cheat" and "fraud" on the Dominion machine software. So change it!!! We have 4 years now to make some changes. So my dear friends, let’s go for it. How do we change the Constitution? We will probably need 4 years and 150 Constitutional lawyers to do that! Oh to change the great old Constitution isn’t easy, but doesn’t it sound right? I don’t want what is called Gerrymandering to ruin things. Look it up! It’s interesting and it’s costly to "poor folks and individuals with no influence"…. like most of us). Give each of the 150 million citizen who can vote one vote. Oh let us all get along to make the US right and peaceful. Don’t say if you didn’t win a state, there was fraud. But I could say the same about states you won. Let us be at peace my friends. Angels with us. Pray!!! God bless us.

In a previous blog I did the math on the numbers of vaccines needed (times two as each person has to get 2). The number is astronomical, but lately people are beginning to talk about other vaccines being developed and coming, "soon." It still might be a year before we are released from restrictions, and the restrictions must be self imposed until then! I read about traveling to Hawaii and getting into a room where the key card, used once to let you in, then locks you in for quaranteen…. Youch! Prisoners in waiting for a 10 day quaranteen! Sounds illegal. But we are being asked not to travel for a serious reason. Chuck and I were quaranteened on a cruise ship for 3 days when we got the flu two years ago. As it turns out I sneaked out to the ship library and got books. Thank heaven they didn’t "lock us in". I got pneumonia after that from that experience and it really didn’t heal up for at least 3 months… So my dears, I am very obedient to quaranteen! Please be careful when near people! Wear a mask. Please don’t get on a plane or a train and travel to visit family. Our neighborhood just sustained 5 cases of Covid, 3 are recovering and two are dead. The 2 who died traveled to visit family and "got it." I’m not advocating being afraid and running away screaming; I’m advocating those measures that Dr Fauci and those others who love and care for us recommend: mask up, don’t travel, bear with this isolation until the curve flattens! OK enough preaching! It’s time for University of Miami’s last football game. Next game is cancelled due to Covid. Make the most of this!!! Do something creative! Clean up piles. Make a quilt. Paint a painting. Decorate lots more than usual!!! God bless us! Angels with us.