Author: Susie

When things turn bad, or as some people say, when things turn south, we can only cling to faith, and that feels awfully loose sometimes. Our dear Apostle John wrote in his first letter… "Beloved let us love one another." He might have added, "no matter what happens." I couldn’t help but cringe as I looked at the angry faces speaking against the vote result of Arizona on January 6 to the joint assembly of Congress and the Senate. Angry faces speaking words to the joint houses of Congress that there is voter fraud. They have had 2 months to prove their accusations, and finally on the day of a Constitutionally directed "tally" they continue to argue against the American vote. Because I didn’t know they were about to be invaded, I thought the worst thing that could happen was the arguments meant to delay the tally. I said to the television, "You had two months to pull out the papers and stand in front of the nation and ‘show the proof,’ yet you only talk and delay." Then the shouting and shooting started. Angry voices shouting and faces grinning at the destruction they are causing as they smash into the Capital. I’m so sorry people died, but I thank God it ended quickly. I felt the President should have spoken quickly that he didn’t really mean it when he spoke to the 2pm rally. "I didn’t really mean march down to the Capital and …. riot? tear things up? smash windows and invade and try to stop a very solemn Constitutionally directed session. I really didn’t mean it." Someone might have seen him speaking from the Oval office, and the deaths might not have happened. He just sat there watching the fur and camoflaged covered men and women tearing at the Capital. I looked at the flags, Trump, Confederate and American flags all waved by the crowd. I love our flag. The others, not so much. Quickly it ended. I earnestly hope the responsible parties are arrested, have a federal trial, and be jailed if we can do it. The reason I say "if we can jail them," is so many people believe they were right and OK. Their own leaders, the President, the President’s attorney, and the President’s son told them it was OK. They have a lot of power behind them. Oh I hope the photos of those jearing, grinning faces inside the Capital count as proof. Enough! Let us transition and have 4 years of taking care of people. Let us… "Love One Another!"

My brother by marriage, my beloved Lee’s brother Bill Baker died yesterday of Covid. He died gasping for breath, intubated, 8 days after he entered the hospital not breathing well due to Covid-caused pneumonia. He died alone and my sister and brother in law can’t go to properly bury him and take care of his estate. Covid. That’s what we need to concentrate on. Get over the ugly invasion of our American dream at the Capital and in Washington DC. Just get over it, and focus and pray for the fight against Covid. It might be helpful to read Mark 6:34 where Jesus is moved with pity for the people looking up to him for answers… He was moved with pity. He fed them with God’s wisdom, with bread, and with fish. 5000 of them he fed. Let us be moved with pity to feed and clothe what in scripture is called the anawim. The small. Beware of planting discord. What will the seeds of evil produce? I have beautiful flowers out in my yard where I planted flower seeds. Plant beauty and watch it grow! God bless us. Let us get to work in prayer.

Are you my new neighbor? Are you my new friend? Are you my enemy? Are you the Lord? Who am I? All these questions are to be pondered this second day of the "New Year." The winter sky keeps many of us sequestered. Covid keeps the rest of us inside, and we have nothing "fun to do." So how about some soul searching? The first reading today is by St John. John writes that John the Baptist clearly told people, "I am not the Christ… I am the voice of one crying in the desert, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’" St. John calls the "other" the antichrist. We have to identify him in our lives. He is a man of lawlessness, he is a liar, he is not "of the church." (St Paul’s descriptions of him.) The antichrist shakes us and frightens us. We have been frightened this year. Several of my friends have been very ill and I have known those who have died. I have to make unpopular decisions like quaranteening and saying NO to friends who ask me to come out.

Maybe this is what New Years resolutions is all about: to answer these questions: Identify! Who are you? Who do you want to help, to be with? Who is your God? How do you honor him? I have a friend who told me she is angry at the church and she does not believe Jesus is God; just a prophet. I was shocked! I couldn’t argue with her. Just hand her a Holy Bible and say "read St Luke." It’s a little like trying to argue with angry people today. I need an expert talker at my side. I know it is the Holy Spirit, but for some reason, sometimes I’m shocked and can’t talk. I can only "Just pray!" Pray my dears for us to get through the next 19 days without really messing ourselves up. God bless America!

Good New Year dear friends. Today’s daily Mass is a celebration of the blessings God has given to us. The reading from Numbers is especially lovely and powerful: " The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord look upon you with his shining face … kindly, and give you peace." Find this blessing in your Scriptures (Numbers 6:22) and read it out loud for your family! Bless one another this beautiful day of the "New Year." Another beautiful blessing is Psalm 67: "May God shed his light upon us; may God bless us in his mercy." And finally Galatians 4:4-7: " You are adopted as son and heir. Cry out Abba, Father." He blesses us because we are his children!

In the old days of the big Peabody parties which ended about 10 years ago, no matter how hung over and sleep deprived I was, I went to Mass on January 1. New Years Day morning we celebrate Mary the Mother of God. On this day we celebrate Mary’s Yes and the fruitfulness that God gave her. Mary is not the creator of God; she is the Theotokus, the God-bearer. Mary is a human mother. She cared for a human child who walked on the earth for 33 years. She stood at the foot of the Cross and she said goodbye to him when he "went to the Father." Mary is the woman in Revelation 12 who stands up against the dragon who wants to destroy her child. Ask Mary to go to battle against the dragon. Ask, "who or what is my dragon?" For many it is anger. For me I think it is impatience. It is impatience with people who won’t "listen." People not doing what I think is right!!! I tend to push my way. I was so disappointed with school children who wouldn’t give a little of their minds to what I thought was so important. In a way, I’m giving what I love, and I’m paying my success forward. I’m sorry for the pain I have caused if I made you feel small. I’m just trying to give from my blessings. My impatience. That’s my dragon. What is your dragon? Place this load of yours in the manger. We still have some time. God bless us! Angels with us.

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.