CONTUMELY: HOW BAD CAN THE TRUTH BE?

Oh, no, not another $50.00 word!  When is this guy going to stop pushing these things on us?  Well, not this time.  Maybe next time.  This came up because there was an occasion last week when in front of my very eyes and to the consternation of my ears, I heard this, "Why are you dancing around the  truth?  You know that the truth never hurt anyone.  So if this person is a gutter snipe, just say it and be done with it."  Oh boy!  That really got me going and turn me into a real moral tiger.  It did this because I remember the long classes of catechism in which we learned about the difference between contumely and calumny.  This in relation to the teachings surrounding the eighth commandment (9th if you're in a Protestant tradition).  I reproached the speaker with the sassy question, "Don't you know that it is a sin to tell the truth about the moral defects of others to a third person?"  The response was, "They never taught us that in catechism class."  WOW!  Well, I suppose that's because contumely is the truth, and the commandment talks about lying.  The people who taught me must have been wrong.  They were perhaps on thin ice in one way, but on solid ground in another one.  Perhaps more related to the "Thou shalt not steal" commandment than the one about lies.  Contumely is really about stealing someone's good reputation.  Even if it is the truth, saying nasty things about someone is a great lack of respect toward that person.  Contumely is the grist of a great amount of gossip.  Now we all know that gossip is a nasty thing.  We all dislike being the object of gossip.  Why?  Simple.  So much of it is true.  Our head spins wondering where anyone got to know that about me.  We go from there trying to Sherlock Holmes our way to finding out who the source of the "news" was.  
Now, you've read all of that and you're saying, "No way. If you're a murderer and a rapist and I know you, you're toast.  I'm telling."  Well, goooood fer yoooouuu!  You should rat that vicious animal out.  It's your duty to the community.  It's the private, personal stuff that makes up the personality of our friends, relatives and neighbors that we have to protect from becoming public.  Just because we know the truth about how the knitting club lady lost her baby doesn't mean that we have the liberty to bust her reputation with it.  Just because we are privy to where the next door neighbor's son was before he suddenly appeared on the scene, doesn't mean that we can make life harder for him by sharing the truth.  We have the mission to help our fellow humans overcome their weaknesses.  We don't have the mission to make them the glorious mark of our inside knowledge about them.
So, be careful with the truth.  If you're interested, you might want to pick up the masterful comedy by Moliere entitled "The Misanthrope."  It will be more fun than the Catechism but just as effective in getting my point across to you from this "Thought."
Anyone know what "calumny" is?

I WAS SERVING MAMMON LUCRE

There's too much going on.  There's work for the transportation company; there's teaching for the parish; there's the old passenger from the transportation company who still loves me and wants me to phone him; There's the tax lady who wants me to be on time for once...just once in 30 years, please.  Her father never complained because he disliked the IRS as much as I did and still do.  I sure hope that God took that guy by the hand and took him for a walk in the Garden.  He was a very holy man.  But, I digress.  I actually caved in to her and she now has our stuff earlier than it has ever been on either his (the father) or her desk.  I have a weak spot for women. I also have been caught up in a messy comment vs. comment in the Catholic magazine these past days.  Oh, it was fun, but it did take a lot of my time and Old Man Lucre (see above) was getting somewhat antsy.  So I got to throw myself at his feet and beg for mercy so that I could have something to pay the rent with next week.  You might know what that is all about.  Have you noticed that I am ending a lot of my sentences with a preposition tonight?  I have to stop it.  My Aussie friends will scold me for not knowing the English language and still putting my verbiage out in public.  By the way, a couple of them live in Tasmania, or do they say, live ON Tasmania?  If they are serious about helping me, they will give me the answer soon.  It's already almost winter there now, so they are no doubt getting more and more cross by the day.  By the way, there is such an animal as the Tasmanian Devil.  At least, they say there is.  On top of all that I took on a charitable work helping the daughters of a dear friend of ours who died about six months ago.  She was French and had property in France and died without a will.  They, the inheriting daughters don't handle the French language very well, so here I am, helping them out.  They tell me that if they have to go to France for this thing, they will take me along to help them.  That's a great prospect!  I wonder if I can deduct the trip so that I won't have to pay taxes on the free ride?
So you're looking for the thought of the day.  I have two.  Neither one of which is very serious, but fun.
One:  Those questions the other day?  They are the type that have no correct and definitive answer.  My friend from Micronesia sent me back and email with answers (hers) and I sent her back an email with mine.
Try it.  You know what you answered.  See if it matches what I could answer.
How long is a string?  Twice as long as its first half.
What does a boat way upon leaving the pier?  Anchor.
How do you lift an elephant with one hand?  First you find a one-handed elephant.   
See what I mean?
Two:  EFR Dion (The Voice from the Kitchen doesn't like it when I do that), so, my father used to be proud of something that not too many people can do.  He was proud that he could write free hand with teenie-weenie writing and you could still read it.   The guy was a serious talent.  Now, fess up, how many of his children knew that about him?
So, now I am going to get out of the arms of Mammon Lucre for a few hours and give Morpheus her turn.  Then Mammon Lucre gets me back tomorrow for the transportation company and Melaleuca which, by the way, is going very well.  We're making $$!  If any of you would like to do something on the side so that you could afford to have an extra topping on your pizza, ask me and I'll send you an interesting link.  
Nighty, night all.

HOW LONG IS A PIECE OF STRING?

How long is a piece of string?  I really don't want any wise crack answers from any of you.  I mean, how many answers could there really be?  Think about it for a short while and when you think you have the answer, raise your hand and go to the bathroom.  You have my permission in advance.  Let me give you a hint.  The brightest answer is the same is how long is an hour?  It's even the same answer as How far is a mile?  This is so easy, that If you keep wondering and kanoodling around with this easy stuff, we'll never get to the hard stuff.  While you're fighting with that, quick, tell me what a ship weighs when it leaves the pier?  See, this stuff is ultra simple.  It's just one of the exercises that you have to do on a daily basis to avoid being victimized by Alzheimer's disease.  You have to exercise your brain.  Some questions blind-side you and when you open your eyes you ask yourself how you could have thought that the question was intelligent to begin with.  Now, while you're still trying to figure out how long a piece of string is, let me ask for help with this one that I have been fiddle-faddling around with all day:  "How do you lift an elephant with one hand?"  Hah!  You'll never get that one. That's Divine engineering stuff that no human can calculate his/her way out of.  I have to tell you that it is much more meaningful than that stupid question we had to solve as teen agers, "How do you put two elephants in a Volkswagen?"  That was ridiculously easy.  It was so easy that my friend didn't help me with it for at least three days.
You're all sitting there with your scrolling fingers itching, wondering when I am going to reach the bottom and give you a list of answers.  HEY YOU, come back up here.
OK, I'll cave in and give you a list of answers:
1. Answers
2. Answers
3. Answers


That long enough for you?  You really didn't think that I would divulge the answers to such magnificently esoteric secrets, did you?


You want answers, send a picture of Benjamin Franklin kissing Marie Antoinette.

HERE'S HOWE -- THE AIRPLANE'S SHADOW

HOW FAST IS IT GOING?

Sorry for being late.  I have to tell you a secret: I was working at a gainful project.  Can you imagine that?  It doesn't happen very often, but when it does, I have to drop a lot of things to make sure that the gain is full, or as full as possible, anyway.  The other part of the secret is that I was also busy composing responses to a person who had submitted three responses to one of our catechetical blogs entitled, "Catholic Q & A with Father Mike."  The comments came back, not as answers to our questions, but as challenges and more questions about our Catholic faith.  So naturally, since I am the Theology Editor of the magazine I had the joy and duty to respond to the person who composed the comments and for the enlightenment of those who would eventually read them.  Father Mike is a celebrity and he doesn't have time.  We 100 year old grunts are the warriors in these battles.  So now that you know more about my personal life than you ever wanted to know.  Let me tell you some more about it.  This is more autobiographical and light hearted than the first part.
When I was a boy, a younger boy than I am presently, EFR Dion would bring home the Sunday editions of two New York Newspapers every weekend.  No, not the Times.  I remember one as being the Mirror and I forget the other.  It was always interesting to read these papers because they had a wonderful line-up of cartoons.  Let me try to remember a few.  Henry (Carl Andersen); Terry and the Pirates (I've got the guy's name on the tip of my tongue...); Little Orphan Annie; The Katzenjammer Kids; Superman; Blondie; Dick Tracy; Nancy; Pogo and a couple more that I can't remember.  There was one about a caveman but I can't recall the title, and finally don't forget Joe Palooka.  It was a lot of fun reading these items.  There was also a semi-glossy magazine in one of the papers and outside of the pictures, I didn't pay too much attention to the content.  There was however one section that I learned to appreciate and never really missed.  It was so intellectually satisfying.  So much so that I have forgotten everything that I ever learned there except for two things.  Yup, all of two.  The first one was easy and I remember feeling that I knew the answer even before reading it, but rather than to try to answer it form my own resources, I read the answer anyway and got this reaction that we all know so well, "I knew that!"  The question? "If you wanted to always walk in the same direction around the earth, in which direction would you choose to walk?"  See, you know the answer to that and perhaps have known it for many years.
The second one is a little trickier and believe it or not, I really did not understand the answer as it was written in the newspaper.  Being a simple tyke of perhaps 10 or 11, I guess that my puzzlement would be understandable.  "Does and airplane's shadow travel at the same speed as the airplane?"  Now that, my friends was a mystery to me.  All the more so that the answer started of with, "It all depends..."  I think that it was then that the curtains came down over my brain and I lost it.  I tried to understand it but could not.  For some inexplicable reason, I never asked EFR Dion for an explanation.  I decided, out of a sense of pride?, that I would solve this one myself.
You know that it took longer than a day.  It took longer than a month.  It actually took years.  In order to protect the innocent, I won't say how many years. Here's how it happened.  I was in the car with EFR Dion and we were going to pick up MJT Dion, his Voice from the Kitchen.  She was coming out of the hospital with my second brother.  We were driving up to what we used to call "The perpendicular parking" space.  Nose to the building, rear to the sun.  There was our shadow on the building.  We were moving and it was not.  Wow, I thought I had it.  I had to test it.  I kept it to myself.  This was too good.  I tested and tested but was never satisfied with my experiences.  The profile of an automobile is too low to get good shadow extension, so the experimentation was taking a long time before bearing any solid fruit.  Then came time to go back to school.  That was to be the key of the latching on to the truth.  The high profile of the bus and the low sun early in the morning were a perfect lab for me to try out my senses.  For the fifteen minutes that I was on the bus, I marveled at the way the shadow would jump from one building to the next at the speed of light while bus was crawling along the street.  I had it.  It was, and still is,  all in the angle.  Ya know what?  That night EFR Dion got an earful!

Hey! It's 1:00 AM. Keep it down, Will Ya!

Ask me what I'm doing up at this hour.  Go ahead.  Try me.  Rather than answer I would perhaps just look at you and wonder what you were doing up at this hour.  Reminds me if the old French Canadian joke that relates how the guy whose drunk too much comes home to see his wife at the door with her rolling pin in hand.  She asks, "How stupid can you be coming home at this hour?"  and his response was, "How stupid can you be to be making pies at this hour?"  So I guess there are two sides to every situation.  Truth to tell,  have been working.  I am preparing the work that I will have to begin on Monday Morning, or Sunday night.  I am late because we had a friend over for supper (dinner for you left coast people) and so everything got pushed back a little.  In a few hours I and the Voice from the Kitchen will be driving to San Diego for a two day stay with our younger son.  He, by the way is getting invitations to interviews,  There is one of them that is somewhat promising since it is in his line and with a company that is a direct competitor of one for which he worked in the past.  We'll see what his guardian angel has in store for him in the next few days.  Your prayers are certainly helping a lot.  Our Melaleuca business is taking off quite nicely.  This makes us happy and encourages us to continue making life happen.   The guest we had for dinner has succumbed to my charms and promised to come to Southern California next January to give some presentations about the theology of the Apparitions of the Blessed Mother Mary.  I am so happy that he will come.  It will make a strong impact on the community here in Southern California to have a professional priest come all the way out to California to share his convictions with us.
I will now stop this disjointed drivel and hie meself to bed.  Remember that this is Saturday and I am counting on you not really reading this because of that.  And, if you're counting the number of "Thoughts" that we have had so far, and compare them with the number of days since November 25, 2010, you'll see that we are safely within the margin of successfully completing  the challenge of 365 Thoughts in 365 days.  You and your expectations are what keep me going.  So keep it up.  I'm now going to throw myself into the waiting arms of Morpheus.

SPIRITUALITY/THEOLOGY OF AGING ACCORDING TO PUTTSS

Oh boy!  The river of thoughts that hit me when I saw this.  It came with a string of other cartoons, not all of them equally as funny, of course.  This one got to me because I was in one of my more spiritual moments this morning. I'm always in the presence of God when I have to do Beelzebub's work by getting my stuff ready for the IRS.  It's such a struggle that I have to keep talking to God, Mary, my Guardian Angel and all the saints so that I don't go off the deep end, where ever that may be.  Anyway, then came this cartoon.  A wave of spiritual cacophony invaded me.  It was a spiritual cloud cloaking me but it was not calming.  It was not peaceful.  It was not truly loving, but I knew it was full of teaching and revelation.  The main lesson that seeped its way into my soul was that God Himself is in charge of the length of our lives.  I remembered Job saying that our days are numbered (chapter 14, verse 5).  I remember psalm 90, that beautiful poem about the human condition.  I remember Jesus' soliloquy in Mark 13 that ends with something like, " ... you don't know the hour, so stay awake".  I, myself have repeated myself numerous times across the blogosphere saying that our lives are not ours to keep. They are God's to use and to govern according to His needs and wants.  

The corollary to the first lesson was that as much as we think we know about ourselves and as much as we like to believe that we and God are one and that we somehow can be a divine cause of our personal well being, we can't.  We can't because we are not divine.  Not even close.  In truth, between the divine nature and the human nature there is a chasm of reality that cannot be bridged by us.  We are told in the Gospel that every hair of our head is counted.  That not a sparrow falls without God knowing it.  Just who do we think we are that we can cause divine things to happen in us?  Isn't the lengthening of life a divine exercise?  Maybe.  The Scripture says that our days are numbered.  Doesn't that mean that when we reach the number, our days end?  It would appear so.

So, then, why take care of ourselves if there is nothing we can do about the amount  of time we have here on earth?  We have  the obligation to care for ourselves because God needs us to do His work.  To do His work we have to be fit.  We have to keep ourselves as fit as possible by using the powers of nature and science to make it so.  It is sinful to abuse our bodies and the bodies of others.  To stay awake, as in Mark, is to stay fit for the greater glory of God.  Some are called to a longer number of days, some are called to a shorter one.  I spoke to a man today who at 87 seems to be about my age. (i.e., young!) No glasses, no hearing aid, no cane.  Clear and sharp voice and a spring in his step.  He said to me something that is music to my ears, "each day I just try to figure out what God wants and I try to give it to Him."  Then I came in and saw this cartoon.  

I know that you are out there saying, That Paul.  He is just so nuts!  It's just a cartoon for crying out loud.  Ya know what?  Yer right.  Even I have stopped drinking and a bunch of other stuff.  Not to live longer, I don't believe in that.  But like the old man said this morning, we have to live strongly for HIM.  For HIM we strive to stay well so that He can get His things done.  

That's what I believe.  Now that you know it, I'm glad that it took away any temptation you might have had to cry at my funeral.

DOES A LARGE NOSE DISFIGURE A PRETTY FACE ?

I AM IN HERE, HELLLO!

Has anyone ever asked you that?  By "anyone" I mean "anyone" with a really large nose?  Did you have someone in your family who suffered from such a condition as a large nose?  You don't even have to think about it.  If you do have a relative with a large nose, you don't have to think.  It popped into your head the minute you read the title.  If you place yourself in the past tense, you still don't have to think about it.  That nose will take over and make you shake your head in awe.  It is quite possible that when you read the title you immediately felt your brain quake a little bit at the dissonance that the question causes.  We don't think of a pretty face "sporting" a large nose...Well not a really large nose, anyway.  We are always willing to give physiological oddity some leeway.  We try to put a grade on oddities that bring us out of the sphere of the average and suddenly plunge us into the arena where the sad is on the left and the humorous is on the right.  Somehow, we feel more comfortable with the humorous, never stopping to reflect on the truth that the "owner" of the oddity is as uncomfortable with the sad as with the humorous.  You know why that is.  It's simple.  It's because the oddity becomes the center stage attraction while the "person" becomes the side show.  I offer you this example from my personal life.  
There was a time when for many years I had a full beard.  The first time I "wore" it, I removed it after about 8 weeks.  People asked me why I had removed it because they liked it.  It was nice.  It was smooth.  The children and the ladies would pass their hand over it and enjoy the sensuality of it.  Everywhere I went, all I heard was, "Wow, Great beard!"  Well, I got sick and tired of that and shaved it all off.  I got center stage back again.
Three months later I had it back.  I liked it better than anyone else did anyway.  You do get my point.  
Two more points.  One.  I come from a family where one member had a far above average large nose.  It was my dear maternal grandmother.  Now she was as sweet as honey and my grandfather was the bee.  A tough and grumpy lover of a man.  One day, as the story goes, my grandmother asked him the question that you saw on the way in, today.  He looked up from his paper and looked at her long and hard, gave a hearty "Haarrruuummppphh, brrr, Brrr and said, "Just keep smiling.  No one's ugly when their smiling."  Then he went back to his paper.  It is then recounted that my grandmother turned back to the task of preparing the meal at the stove and she said, "...And a big nosed woman is pretty when she stirs the pot."
Two.  Human physical beauty is perceived only by other humans.  It is also true that human physical beauty has a way of becoming secondary in certain emotional environments.  I'll bet that just like me, there are some of you reading this who occasionally ask, "what could anyone see in her/him?"  Yet, there they are, she with the big nose and he with the "flying wing" ears.  To see how beautiful that couple is, we look at the children romping around them.  Mystery solved.  Love conquers all.
Finally, the picture at the head of this item has the face of a man in it.  Are you going to content yourself with enjoying the pretty outer colors in the quaint pattern or are you going to try to discover the face that is masked by the first thing that strikes our senses?  There's a lesson there too.  I leave it to you to reflect on it and draw your own lesson(s) from it.

CAREER? WHO NEEDS IT? IT'S MORE FUN WITHOUT IT!

Yesterday, or the other day I mentioned that my younger son was interviewing for a job outside of his line.  One of you jumped all over me (private email) and said some very interesting things about what taking a job outside your line could do to your life, to your self image and to the image that others have of you.  It is a major sin to "change lanes".  Once you have been endowed with the gifts that can serve as the foundation for your career, you must stick with them and make them, and them alone carry you through life.  To that I say, stercus taurorum!  Why? I'll tell you why.
A career is a track to run on.  If you don't believe me, check the etymology.  You can check the Latin languages. Horses have careers.  Humans don't.  Humans have the freedom to choose what they want when they want.  The reason I took that design up there is because it is the perfect image of a career.  Go straight down the track and make the first left for the rest of your life.  Ask any run of the mill race horse.  How many horses ever have a second chance before the glue factory? Not too many.  In this day and age of artificial insemination, even the second chance that they used to have is not that glamorous.  So, you want to run around in circles, or ovals?  Have a career.  My view of the world is,  don't have one.  Do what you either want to do, or have to do and learn to like it, or don't do anything at all.  Don't talk to me about image.  Image will not put steak on your plate.  Not the image you have of yourself nor the image that others have of you.  WORK is what puts steak on your plate.  That is what humans are called to do, WORK.  Not run around in circles and look good.  I know people who are "one trick" ponies.  They have a Church career, many of those that I know.  Fifty years they've been working in Church and fifty years later they still have nothing but the groove in the track that they've been on all the time.  They are good, solid, career people.  How many priests do you know who have left the active ministry of the Catholic Church and gone across  the street to the Anglicans, or others?  Is it because they like the Anglicans better?  No.  It's because they're incapable of surviving out of their line.  That's why I'm against taking  the Anglican priests into the Catholic Church.  We're not doing ourselves any favors.  They aren't smart enough to be able to survive outside the clerical state.  Why should we take them?  They haven't been any more faithful to their original calling than the Catholic priests who've gone to the Anglican side of the street.
I personally have had a lot of opportunities to learn a lot of things, up to and including being an Anglican.  Work for the Queen of England?  You gotta be nuts!  Back to stuff I learned, stuff like, cussing in Latin and seven other languages.  I learned a lot about labor law.  I learned a lot about computers.  I learned how to write a little bit.  I learned how to talk straight without covering up the truth.  I learned how to organize events.  I learned how to teach.  I taught theology for thirteen years for a Southern California diocese.  I learned how to study so that I never had to cram for exams.  I graduated with a masters in Theology from a prestigious Dominican University in Rome.  I learned how to marry late in life and still keep it going for 35 plus years.  I learned to recognize  that I was not ever going to be good enough to play professional baseball and dealt with the disappointment.  I worked in Italy, France, Mexico and the Philippines besides here in the U.S.  I worked in church.  I worked as a paralegal advocate in the church office of marriage annulments.  I worked in manufacturing plants.  I worked for non profit NGO's.  I worked as a professional driver.  I worked as a cashier in a taco shop.  I worked as a telephone answering service operator.  I worked as a professional interior painter and I worked as a clerk in a store that sold soap and other non consequential life style items.  Now I am working as an independent billing contractor.  Wife and I also have a small Melaleuca business.  Those are the things that have generally $upported me in life.  Now, for O income,  I also write blogs and serve as the Theology Editor for ParishWorld.net, an online Catholic Magazine and finally, as the official pain in the ass of the Priest Moderator of Temporalities and Service Commissions at the church that I attend.  
So, go ahead, ask me if I have a career, or had a career and my answer is, Who needs one?  Horses.

STERCUS TAURORUM

Those two words provide you with good cover for when you want to utter something in disparagement without upsetting the decorum apple cart.  This is so effective that those of you who believe implicitly in Google, the infinite, speed of light know-it-all of 26,000,000,000 searches in .039528 seconds, was unable to come up with an appropriate image for this Latin version of the Anglo-Saxon equivalent 8-letter nasty word.  When I wrote the ANGLO-SAXON in the search space and pressed "go", POW, BAM, SissBoomBah, the screen lit up and immediately became NSFW, even in my own house.  Man, if the Voice from the Kitchen would have swished by during that few moments, this blog would no longer exist.  OOppss, I think I forgot how old some of you may be, so I didn't define NSFW.  Rather than to compromise your integrity by asking you to approach your children for the definition, I'm going to whisper it to you so that they won't hear.  Ready now, good! Listen carefully: "Not Safe For Work."  Be honest now, how many of you had to turn up your hearing aid for that?  Only three!  HHmmm...No comment.  
We all have to have an outlet for certain explosive moments.  It does happen that occasionally these moments arrive at inopportune times and rather than be embarrassed by the sound of our voice saying what we would prefer to snarl in disgust or drop a verbal bomb with a sick smile on our face, we choke it back and nearly die from high blood pressure.  That's why you have to cultivate something in a language that will not offend innocent ears, holy ears, young ears, conservative, older ears and a host of other kinds of ears that I don't want to mention in this venue.  Some of us have the treasure of being able to explode in a language that the audience will not understand.  Or so we think.  I was on a crowded bus in Rome with some priest friends of mine.  One of them let one rip in vulgar, gutter English when a fat lady stepped on his foot.  The driver looked in the mirror and fired back, "A little more decorum, please, Father."  Yes, in English.  We got off at the next stop.  Then it was OK to laugh.  So you have to be careful.  There is the famous story about the two priests from the Philippines who were visiting Barcelona, Spain.  As they were climbing the long and beautiful stairs leading up to the main entrance of the Cathedral behind a very alluring and inviting pair of female glutei maximi, one priest made a comment in a rather non common Filipino dialect about the AAA quality of the view just ahead.  When they got to the vestibule of the church the woman turned around and in a perfect accent said, "So that's what you priests talk about when you think it is safe."  They were walking behind the daughter of a famous tobacco baron who had extensive property in the Philippines in the very area where these two broken halo angels grew up.
Now I know how to say things in front of people, and in writing too.  But I am partial to the saying that is the title for today because it is so "churchy."  I really like it these days because it is Latin and even the priests don't understand Latin any more.  So there's a special sweetness to being able to cuss in front of someone in his official language and know that he doesn't have a prayer of understanding what you're saying.  I know, that's a sin, but it's a small one and I say an act of contrition every night so I should be able to get away with a few years in purgatory for that one.
So I close by leaving you with "ipse stercus taurorum non est."

THE GREAT ILLUSION

FRONTISPIECE "GREAT ILLUSION"

So, you're wondering what I am up to today.  I am sharing something with you that I discovered during my early days of "Internet surfing."  I have never forgotten this experience.  I don't think of it often, but when I do and, like today,  am in a relaxing mood, I return to it.  It has been several years since I have spent a moment with this site.  I can honestly say that the 20 minutes or so that I dedicated to visiting the pictures and the thoughts were very pleasurable indeed.  The creators of this presentation are very exciting persons, I am sure.  The author of the poetry is not the visual artist.  However, the two of them seem to have developed a commonality of thought and mental imagery that goes beyond the commonplace.  Being there with them is an exciting experience of a different nature than those to which most of us are accustomed.  It is a pleasure for me to invite you to click on the link and to go where over 2,000,000 un-duplicated souls have gone before.  However, allow me to say this. Oh, by the way, whether you allow me or not, I'm going to say it!  I do not present this opportunity to you for any other reason than the aesthetics that it presents.  It is a fine human experience.  I do not find myself in accord with many of the thoughts that are propounded by the author/poet.  I do state that I am intrigued and beguiled by many of the opinions presented here.  The author has a way of twisting my mind into non-habitual shapes, and my curiosity is always piqued by certain turns of phrase.  I have been visiting this poet for many years, and every time I get a rush from some far-out turn that I had missed before.  

What attracts me the most is the conjunction of poetry and visual representations as they flow across my consciousness.  The conjoining of the two creates many challenges to my mental state as well as to my personal, habitual perceptions of reality.  I know that some of you will take one look and beat feet out of there.  I also know that some of you will be taken by the creativity of the whole and perhaps spend more time than you had anticipated at the outset.   For those of you in the second set, I make the assurance that this site isn't going anywhere soon.  In fact, over the years Victor Kahn (the poet) has added more thoughts.  So you will be able to leave it, go to bed early to prepare for work tomorrow and return to continue the visit.

I therefore leave you with something that you would perhaps not have expected of me.  Then again, some of you know that I can be a rather surprising animal.  I hope that most of you will enjoy the experience of "The Great Illusion."

TWO CHALLENGING QUESTIONS, AMONG OTHERS

1. Has anyone who can read ever been successful at cleaning out the attic?
2. Has there ever been an artist who judged his work to be so good that he was not surprised that  the market place fell head over heels for it?


Are you asking yourselves why these two questions appear together on the same page?  I can't help but to do it because I think that they go together for one major reason.  They describe the two ends of the human behavioral graph. The Attic cleaner is a person who makes a non-negotiable decision to clean the material that has been gathering for a long time because when it was new, or current it was too good to be thrown away.  "Oh, I'm sure that I will need this someday."  That happened when the reader was 30 years old.  Now the readeer is 70 and knows that it is time to start reducing the material that is weighing down the possibility to be free and to move on to other things.  So, to today's the day.  Here we go.
The empty box is in place, the shredder is plugged in and an empty bag has been snuggly fit into place.  Three hours later, the shredder bag is one quarter full, the box is now filled with well arranged books and notes that are just too good to throw out and there is still at least 3/4 of a ton of stuff left to "sort."  Not throw out, notice. Sort.  "I can't throw out the first draft of my thesis.  How can I get rid of that syllabus for the first theology class I ever taught in Christology?  That stuff is still good, you know."  I don't have to go on, you get the point.  Everything I've done and saved was good then, is good now and forever will be good and... serviceable -- period.  So, what's for dinner?
The artist is also a saver.  Go into the work space of an artist.  Any artist, in any of the arts, from painting to writing.  I dare you try to feel comfortable around such treasures.  On the walls; on the tables; on the desk; on the floor; in open drawers; in short, everywhere.  The smells are clashing with one another just as the colors are too.  Paper; varnish; paint; ink; canvas and I don't know what ever else.  The artist doesn't throw anything out because it came into being out of love.  "I just love doing this."  The reason why I have decided to put this out in front of the world is because, the artist also doesn't even want to try to sell the beauty that talent has created.  "I can't foist this crap on anyone and take money for it."  "So, why don't you just throw it out and start over again?"  "Well, I kinda like it.  But it's too shabby to sell for money." I press on, "why don't you let the market place decide what this stuff is worth."  Oh, big boo-boo.  "What does the market place know?  What do you know?  Have you even looked around to educate yourself about this stuff before telling me to sell it?"  "No, I haven't, but without studying it, I happen to know what I like.  Every boob in the marketplace also knows what he/she likes.  Who are you to decide where, when and on what the buyer should spend money?"  The conversation turned to other things, but the artist knows good and well that I will be back.  Ha! I even spent about 45 minutes on Google checking out what he told me to check out.  Frankly there's some frighteningly technical success in this line of work, but technical success does not beauty make.  I repeat, technical success does not beauty make.  
I also allow myself to say that the artist does not dictate the taste of the beholder.
I put these two considerations together because neither one of the two people depicted herein is connected to a driving reality outside of themselves.  The attic cleaner adores the stuff that has been lying out of sight and out of mind for 40 years and has now claimed squatter's rights on the cleaner's life.  The artist's pieces have claimed squatter's rights under the pretext that the artist constructs. He judges that it is not good and therefore not worth cold hard cash.  This even if another human being judges it to be desirable and wants to satisfy the inner craving of letting the finished work bring aesthetic comfort to the environment.  Yes, to the point of paying for it.
Do me a favor...and the artist.  Click on the cartoon of me with the booze in one hand.  You'll be looking at some of the artist's work.  Go to "comments" and in 10 words or less, let us know if you would pay for something like what you see.
This is not a solicitation for business.  When we want you to buy something, you'll know it, believe me.  This is nothing but a friendly poll.

BEFORE THE 5TH COMMANDMENT THERE WAS THIS

CLEAN SLATE

Here's what God told Noah. "

 from man in regard to his fellow man I will demand an accounting for human life.

6            If anyone sheds the blood of man, by man shall his             blood be shed; For in the image of God has man been made.

7   Be fertile, then, and multiply; abound on earth and subdue it."  (Genesis, 9)
I like gems like this.  Stuff that happened way before the ten commandments.  So much is said about the ten commandments that after a while the power seems to have leaked out of them.  It is probably because  they are thrown at the world without any "back story" support.

We learn in the early chapters of the Bible that murder is a crime that cries out to God for vengeance.  This even before the Law that was given to Moses.  Look at those two clean slates.  Adam ands Eve found a way to screw up even before these two tables were inscribed on Sinai.  I think about this often.  I think about how the life of humans regulates itself from within and, at the same time, has to be regulated from the outside.  Way before the Law was promulgated, Adam and Eve had the order to refrain from a certain act, to not eat of such and such plant.  They couldn't control themselves and they allowed themselves be scammed into doing something that they had been told not to do.  Going forward after that, humans knew that they had a side to them that could be deviated into wrong behavior.  Somehow, internal direction and focus needed to be supported by direction and focus from the outside.  So now we have it.  The interesting part of it all is that now that we have the Law, we have not only the evil itself that we complain about but the Law that is there to help us steer clear of the evil also. Now, what is all that about?  I think I have to go back to my first glimmer of thought, it is because we don't know the "back story."
Along the same line of thought, but coming forward to our day.  We have sometimes heard that the ten commandments are not all that important.  What the heck, didn't Saint Augustine say, "Love and do what you will."  Oh, yeah?  Ha!  Have you given that a try around your house these days?  I'll bet you two Jacksons and a Hamilton that you don't dare.  And, by the way, neither does the Voice from your Kitchen dare.  Yet, we love deeply, but we also know that even if we don't have the Law, we have RULES.  You bet we do.  They are so sacred that we don't even name them out loud.  We just follow them.  Domestic tranquility depends on it.  Mutual respect is encased in "them thar rules."  So, we live within the bounds of two railings, the inner virtue railing and the outer legal railing.  It doesn't matter how much we love.  It matters how much we learn to love our situation, the internal environment as well as the external reality of our nature.  The more we love the Law Maker and the Great Lover, the better is life and the less we have to rely on the external force that makes us do good.  The more we live within the bounds of the internal guide, the happier we are.  If we could free ourselves from the influence of the Law, we would then have attained perfection.  Well, that "ain't gonna happen.  Get used to it."  But since the voyage is where the fun is to be found, it is the struggle to free ourselves from the necessity of the external force so that we can declare ourselves 100% "innies", that straining and stretching for perfection will get us to the Eternal Kingdom of Happiness in the Face to Face glory of God Himself.  That happiness is what will enable us to stop crying at one another's funerals...especially mine.  

TINTINNABULATE -- KULIBANGBANG -- ULTRACREPIDATE -- ENCHIRIDION

ENCHIRIDION

I got to thinking today, for a change!  When I do that I usually talk softly to myself.  I also fall into my favorite sesquipedalianisms.  That's a fancy word for a multi-syllable word that doesn't mean much but has a lot of sound.  I do that because I like to listen to the sound of fancy words in my mind.  It's more humble that way because no one hears me.  Today was one of those days.  It's a game that I play.  Today, for example I was looking for a companion to my favorite given name, just by the sound.  For years I have been partial to Guillermina.  Roughly, "guee-yair-meen-ah."  Spanish for the feminine of "Little William."  I've liked the sound of that name for years.  It doesn't hurt that the first Guillermina I met was a very fetching creature before the eyes of men.  God must have liked her too, because He could stand back and pat himself on the back for doing such a great job on the day that He made her.  I still don't have a name in mind that I can say that I like as much as this one.  Many of us know that EFR Dion's favorite name was "Jeanine."  To me he always said it was because of his great admiration for Joan of Arc.  I still suspect that it was because of the song, "Jeanine, I dream of you in lilac time..."
The words on the title line represent some of my favorites, three in English and one in Ilokano.  The one in bold here isn't my all time favorite word, but my favorite is so far out there that it would be hard to make you get the feel of it.  KULI-BANG'-BANG'.  The accent is hit like staccato on those two syllables.  Of course the "A" is pronounced like the English "A" in lAw.  When you say it often enough in repetition, you get the idea that you are imitating the flight of a butterfly.  It is a really neat word.  TINTINNABULATE is onomatopoeic because it imitates the sound of the object that it describes...a bell.  If you're not careful with this guy, it will turn into an ear worm in a heart beat.  
ULTRACREPIDATE is a favorite of mine not so much for the sound, although it is a tough sounding beast, isn't it, but because of the meaning.  It is a word that I occasionally use to cut someone down to size for criticizing a reality about which the individual has little or no real knowledge.  I can say that with a smile and a chuckle, even in public, and get away with it because there aren't to many humans who really know what it means.  It helps me get it off my chest and get away with people thinking that I'm an arrogant ass who uses big words.  That's cheap compared to what they would feel if they really knew what I had said.  Fortunately, I haven't had too many opportunities to unload this one in my lifetime.
The last one I put up there is one of my favorites because of its etymology.  It means "book for the hand" in Greek.  It's a reference book.  A book of lists,  actually.  Centuries before Kasey Kasem.  The humorous reality here is that Enchiridia (plural) are usually found in libraries and monasteries and in universities.  They have grown up and they are far, far from being books for the hand.  I guess you could say that they are not handbooks either, although they really are quite accomplished handbooks.  Where's George Carlin when I need him?
My favorite word in French is really very common, but quite picturesque.  "Grimper."
The sound says so much.  I love it.  Then again when we were small children we used to love the sound of the word "turluter" which is to make musical sounds like beebopping.
So I leave you with an insight of how I relax even while I am working.  I listen to my favorite words.
Ok, Ok, so you want to hear my all time favorite.  Here it is: BULALAYAO.  With emphasis to make people feel the awe in you, you can say BULLALLAYAO.  Allow me try to sound it out for you.  BOO - LAW - LIE - OW.  Now you have to tell me what it is.  Yes, it is a noun.  It describes something biblical and beautiful that is a sign of God's promise.

QUIET COMPANIONSHIP, LIKE I WAS TAUGHT TO APPRECIATE

GREAT THOUGHT TODAY. WORKING AT HOME I LIT A CANDLE TO HAVE  A PRESENCE AND SOME PEACE AND QUIET.  Instead of the music in my ears, I decided to have some movement in soft and gentle waves in my peripheral vision.  I desired some companionship while I was working, so it dawned on me that Catholics have this respect for candles.  So I decided to be Catholic for a day and try it out.  I have to confess that it is quite soothing in a subtle way.  It was a small candle.  Not real small, but one that was substantial enough to keep me company for as long as I felt the comfort of its companionship.  It made me think that I was in a monastery.  Silence.  Golden silence.  Little flickers of changing light even in the daytime.  The occasional smell of the by-products of the process of self immolation that candles go through.  I did not have a pure beeswax candle like I used to have.  This one was just a simple paraffin product of the petroleum age.  Unscented, just pure hardened jelly with a wick.  Beeswax is much friendlier.  The substance itself gives off an aroma that is clean and natural.  It hearkens you back to the hive from which it came.  The bees working together, protecting the queen, building the internal cells for the pro-creative process. They too sacrifice themselves for their own welfare and that of those who will come and pluck their magnificent architecture away from them. I suppose that I would have felt more at home with a true beeswax candle.  I will say, however, that my petroleum friend did quite fine in the way of being a tranquil, warm and enlightening silent partner.  All day I kept thinking of how Jesus in the Tabernacle has a candle keeping vigil over Him constantly.  The candle pays the same price that Jesus did.  It consumes itself in our stead, just as He did 2,000 years ago.  All told, I had an interesting spiritual experience with my "wick-ed" companion.  I thank God for giving me the insight and the inspiration to put myself in that situation.

ONE WAY HOW AMATEURS DIFFER FROM PROFESSIONALS

It's not complicated, but I never in my life thought about this way.  It came about in a conversation with an avid golfer whom I know quite well.  No, not you.  This person is happy just to be out on the links.  He goes to golf at least once per week and goes to the Philippines with a group golf tour just to watch the grass grow.  Now this guy is a real competitive guy.  He is in business for himself and I work with and for him.  Yet, while we were chatting the other day, he was carrying on about how nice the weather was and about how much fun he had with the guys.  I personally could never be like that.  When I do a sport, I have a hard time realizing that it is only a game.  I really do.  For me, baseball is war; hockey is war; ping-pong is war; tiddly-winks is war, for crying out loud.  There's no such thing as a "game."  When I told him that he laughed and said that he now knows why I never played professional sports.  He said that it is because I never learned that perfection is not a reality, but a goal.  As long as you keep it in front of you as a goal, then each mistake that you make is just another time when you realize that you are not yet perfect.  He said that the difference between a professional and an amateur is that the professional has more reason to get angry at himself/herself than the amateur, but doesn't.  The amateur (many of us) have the tendency to get angry at ourselves for every missed shot, but we don't have the "right" to do so because we are not good enough to begin with.  His point made sense to me on the intellectual level.  Every time we watch professionals play, we see their cool, self-containment and inner directive focus in action.  We see the football star drop an easy "catch".  We watch the baseball star strike out.  We see the crack tennis champion double fault and yes, we sometimes see the bright star of the hockey rink miss an open net.  In most games that are played against the clock, we often see the star who made the calamitous error early on, make the play that seals the victory.  My friend said, in competition it is not perfection that is the goal, it is comparison.  It is the ability to control the comparison and stay on the positive side of the "I am better than you" comparison.  It is not possible to control that if you consider yourself perfect and get angry at yourself for not being so.  The professional is one who realizes this to a high degree.  The professional knows that he/she is not perfect, so mistakes don't drive the professional crazy like they do the amateur.
Without thinking about it during the conversation, I thought of myself, the professional driver.
There are people on the road for whom being there is war.  Beware of them.
I learned a lot from the conversation with my friend.  I never thought about life that way.  I never thought that I could find the description of  the thought within my very self.  I am amazed that there is indeed one thing in me that is not war.  Too bad that God has made arrangements that dictate that I will have to learn how to be a professional at something else, because driving nearly put me away for good.
Isn't that what war does?
HHmmmm!

WHOSE THE BIGGER ASS?

?

I am sorry to say that the picture that I wanted for this piece has been lost.  It was taken when we were in a recreated "Nazareth in the year 15 AD" model village and I was standing near a prime example of an ass.  An Aussie classmate of ours took the picture and stated that he had taken it so that he could have it examined to see who was actually the bigger ass.  Yup, three weeks into the relationship and he already had me pegged.  I have been this way ever since I was real small, I think.  I would come home after school in the first grade and hear my mother tell me that Mrs. so and so had reported to Mom that I had no respect for my elders.  Yeah, not kidding.  I remember telling my mother one time that I had been impolite to this one crabby old lady because she had been un-nice to me.
Worse than that though is this problem that I have with my mouth.  I always think that I am Oh, so cute!  It has been nearly all my life that I have been twisting people's noses with my mouth, sometimes on purpose but by and large, just because of bad judgement.  I want to learn how to shut up, but then, I suppose, it wouldn't be me.  It's really frustrating to hurt someone you love, or even someone you just only "like" just because you're too stupid to keep your tongue in tow.  That's bad enough, but if you know me, you know that I can saw you in half on purpose if the moment calls for it.  I don't get too many of those moments, but when I do I don't usually flub the opportunity.  
You know that I am an ass; The Voice from the Kitchen knows I'm an ass; everyone who knows me, knows that I'm an ass.  YIKES, I know that I'm an ass.  The other day I hear from the kitchen, "I can't figure out if I knew then what I know now if I would have ever married you.  You are so bad.  Getting worse, too.  Why didn't I see it before?  I was so madly in love that I must not have known what I was doing."  By the way, that was on one of my GOOD days.  I hadn't done anything yet, it was breakfast time!  I do want to say one thing, not in my defense, cause I got none of that, but just for general knowledge.  I know myself well enough that if you tell me that I was stupid enough to say or do anything that hurt you, I'll admit it, apologize and hope that you will get over it as fast as I will.  Sometimes, like now, I know that I sideswiped someone I love very dearly a couple days ago.  I didn't think so until after it happened.  It's crazy, but it's me and it ain't easy being green, as Kermit used to say.  But worse than that, it also ain't easy living with the green monster.  I know it and I'm amazed every single day that there are still people out there who still love me.  For those of you who are going to come to my funeral just to make sure that it is true, get in line, because you're going to be in the vast majority.  Hee-Haw.
Finally, for all of you that I have hurt past and present, realize that I love you except if I already told you that I don't...and you would not be receiving this if you fell into the second category.  So lighten up.  Don't you just hate these serious "Thoughts"?  xoxo

XXX 4 ADULTS ONLY XXX

Hey, how ya doin'?  Whadja think of the Wedding Chapel ad in the Parish Bulletin?  Good stuff, right.  So then you open this an you get an "X" rated title.  I put that up there to get your attention, no more no less.  I'm back to childhood anyway, so I have to steer clear of certain things, like alcohol, tobacco, fire arms, sharp knives and slippery stairs.  Slippery slopes are OK though, so what with the funny stuff going on at church and all, I figured that I would take the opportunity to tell you that I am pro-choice.  Yup!  Pro-choice.  It's the only way to go, especially if, like me, you are driven to shivers to declare to the entire world that you are, indeed ANTI ABORTION.  
Over the years since surgical abortion was made legal in this country, it has amazed me how twisted the language can get around this issue.  Further, it amazes me how narrow minded pro-life people can actually be.  I was flabbergasted the past January during the Adult Faith Formation Week mini-congress that we held at our church when we had presentations by the professionals from Rachel's Vineyard during the week.  At least three "sidewalk warriors" came to me to denigrate me and the bishop for being "soft" on abortion because we backed these people who are in the ministry of rehabilitating people (women and the men) who had directly procured an abortion.  This is pro-life?  Nope.  What about taking care of the lives if those who procured the procedure?  HHHmmmm??
You know, of all the animals, and in fact of all the creatures, corporeal and spiritual, we are the only ones left with the grace of freedom.  It blows my mind that we can so blissfully throw that grace out the window and declare ourselves pro-life.  That's life, you got two choices, Abortion or Life.  Everything else is not important.  The interesting part of it all is that the three star general from the air base up the road declares himself to be pro-life.  The superior court judge does the same.  The guy who works at the slaughter house is pro-life too.  He has the vegetarians after his hynie.  Now, those same veggie people, they aren't pro life either, as far as I learned in biology class anyway.  Pro-life is a myth.  Pro-life is an oxymoron that is alive and well everywhere.  People have to stop strewing the path of life with such stercore taurorum.  Stop hiding behind the political correctness jargon and call an abortion an abortion and not a prophylactic medical procedure.  Stop hiding behind the stupid assertion that it is "my body."  It's not.  Because it's not, find out what your zipper is for.
Finally, God gave us one choice too.  It's all over the Bible, so I don't have to repeat it, you all know the first commandment.  We have a choice.  Choose God or go to hell. Period.  "Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve him completely and sincerely. Cast out the gods your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.  15 If it does not please you to serve the LORD, decide today whom you will serve, the gods your fathers served beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose country you are dwelling. As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." (Joshua 24;15)  
Finally, if Jesus in the desert had opted to change the stones to bread to satisfy HIS BODY, where would we be today?  I thank Jesus every day for making the choices He made.  He made them so that we would learn to make them through the grace that we get from Him and the Spirit.  By the way, when we are making those choices, let's make them by "making our YES, YES..." (Let your 'Yes' mean 'Yes,' and your 'No' mean 'No. ...Matt. 34;24)  and forget the political correctness BS.  Call a spade a spade and an abortion an abortion and say openly to the world that we are anti-abortion.
Phew!  That was a high horse to ride.  I hope I calm down by tomorrow.

NO, I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP

This has got be the highlight of my week.  I, and you, get a lot of stuff over the Internet that makes us shake our heads and wonder whether or not this is true.  Somehow we just know that some creative genius sat down and made it up.  Just in the past couple or three days I got a list of church announcement boo-boos.  You've see those things, so I won't bore you.  Instead, here's what I saw --------->>>   this very morning when I picked up the church bulletin.  
I will say this, I am not a habitual reader of the bulletin.  It never really contains anything that I want to see, unless it is the announcement for an event that I personally have been working on for a year.  You get my point.  Anyway, I picked up the bulletin and began to read it in pure Hebrew style, from right to left, back to front for you who are inveterate left to right readers.  
Yup, right there in the Catholic Church was this blaring ad for a wedding chapel that offers 24 hour service for the eloping couple to seal the deed while escaping to Canada or Mexico or thereabouts while the parents are hypnotized by the Sunday afternoon football foolishness.  Ya gotta admit, this is a great one!
After the Mass when I caught up to the Priest Moderator of Temporalities and Service Commissions and showed it to him, he acted amused as he took it in and made the remark that this is the result of a regional effort to solicit advertising and that this ad must have been submitted to the publishing company (Paluch) directly by the salesperson without checking out (or caring about) the copy.  I told him as he was fixing to walk away that he had better call Paluch and get it taken down.
Well, I guess that now I am committed to picking up the bulletin next Sunday too.  Maybe I ought to renew my State of California "marrying Sam" license.  I could then take out an ad in the parish bulletins of Southern California's churches.  Might be a chance for some added income.

HERE IT IS IN ALL IT'S UNEXPURGATED, RIPPED-FROM-ITS-ROOTS GLORY

VIEW OF THE WORLD FROM THE ISLANDS COUNTRY OF PALAU

I am going to continue some of the thoughts that flew through my head yesterday but didn't make it on "paper."
When we arrived here in Moreno Valley some six years ago, we met a very loving and caring person who was born and brought up in the island country of Palau. You can see by the map that this small, really small, micro-country is in the general area where the first surges of the tsunami would have come ashore. So the woman, who has become a very dear friend over the short time that we have known her, was afraid that something could have happened to her relatives.  She read the post on this blog and then sent me this personal email that I am going to edit and paraphrase for you.  Some of it will be in the phonetic way that she writes, but I'll make sure you get to understand Pacific Islander as we go.  Here, let me put up a picture to give you an idea of the size and scope of this homeland of hers.  How's that?  Think you might want to go there and live?  You can perhaps start to get an idea of the life style of the people who populate this piece of the planet.  Let's listen to the report of the tsunami's effect on them.

I emailed my home Island and no one bothers to return my email.  Considering it was weekend there, people were not working.

They use their work computer.  I imagine nothing happened.  The ship

from USA was sailing there to check it out.  My sister heard from some in-laws in Guam so I guess everything is fine since it is an hour away by plane.

Yes, dear hearts there are places like this that still exist.  On Saturday and Sunday the clock stops and the sun takes over.  Monday is soon enough to start using the electricity again.  For us who live here, including the acculturated immigrants who have been here a long time, life in this slow lane has become a mystery.  We hear our friend say, "You know how life is on the island."  Actually, we don't know, but we can imagine.  We love this lady dearly.  She is so deeply spiritual and so deeply loving that she is a great presence in our lives.  Let me close with one of her thoughts.  You'll love this one.

You remember the comments I made about modesty and other serious matters in the post about pants and things?  There you'll notice what I mentioned about women wearing pants, etc.  Here, I now pass  the pen to my friend so that you can appreciate the depth of her spirit.  "One would think you re' a pant rant man.  You are not.  There is something in a woman wearing  a dress.  The  reason is to hide a womb. It is suppose to be sacred.  We veil what is sacred and holy like the Blessed Sacrament.  Also we wear veil as a sign of humility at least that is the original idea."

That's the wrap-up of this thought, with some help from the part of Paradise that fell into the Pacific Ocean.  Go, Palau.

TSUNAMI

TSUNAMI SURGE

Today was a day of a tsunami and I dare say that this event caused some thoughts to be generated in my graying pate.  First, at about 7:30 PST, USA, the Voice from the Kitchen excitedly said that there was a tsunami advisory for the West Coast.  This was because there was an earthquake in Japan that measured 8.9 on the Richter scale.  I said that I was absolutely sure that our personal assets would be safe.  We continued to prepared to go to Mass.  We prayed for the victims and came back for breakfast and work.  An hour later we were back to doing the things that we had planned for the day.  I opened my email and sitting on top was a message from my sister in Massachusetts saying that my nephew had called her and asked about us.  She asked him why and he explained that there was a tsunami advisory for California.
That's touching.  A nephew with whom we have rare contact thinks of us during a tsunami advisory.  
Sister and I exchange an email or two and she mentions that she is wondering about the family of the Voice from the Kitchen.  They live in the Philippines.  I have to admit that because I know where they live, there is not a .00000001 chance that they would be affected.  But, know what?  I ran to Google News to find out what had happened in the Philippines.  I checked Manila, Cebu, Davao, Olongapo.  Nothing bad happened.  That, I must admit was a happy surprise.  So not only did the land-locked relatives escape calamity, but it seems as though everyone else did too.
So, I tell her via email that everything in the P.I. is copacetic.  I go back to doing my project of the moment.  Then it strikes me.  I have friends in Japan and Australia.  What am I thinking of?  I have to check.  So, Google be damned.  Direct email.  Japan, Australia, including the friends in Tasmania.  Three words: "Are you OK?"
Five minutes later, even though it is 5:30 AM there, First Australia and then Japan, AOK. Phew.  Thank you,Lord.
I can't help but think how close we are to one another.  I can't help but wonder what role advanced warning technology played in keeping the death and injury toll down.  All of this happened while I was doing business in France for some children whose French mother died some six months ago.  This world seems to have shrunk to baseball size.  Yet, the forces it engenders are so massive.  I sit here tonight amazed that the minute something of this magnitude happens, we join together in spirit.  Though helpless physically, we strive to reach out to help through the strength of our mind, heart and soul.
Alleluia.