Steal My Stuff: When Imagination Takes Flight

Way back in early February, I made mention of a, ah, novel idea:

Back in college in the early eighties, I came up with the plot/question of what it would be like – as written from the inside – to have one's memories thoroughly scrambled. Picture your life as a large binder full of many, many pages of photos, letters, stories, recollections, and so on. Whoops; binder snaps open under a strong wind, and the pages go flying downfield.

You hurriedly gather the sheets… but there's no longer any continuity between them, no progression from A to B to… Z. And you'd never dated/numbered the pages! How do you reestablish your self-identity, self-awareness, with this loose sheaf of dirtied paper? You need to read it, refer to it, use it, NOW; no time to sort and analyze… and here comes a bull!!

I gave up after a few years of first-person vignettes, since I couldn't find a way to bring the story – by its very nature – to rise above being a dreckful hash of jumbled, disordered pieces. A good several of these pieces into the book, there was to come the fellow's key recollection/recount of how his memory was scrambled… likely several pages after the (later) conclusion of how to unscramble it all. Slowly, lurching through his lifetime, he'd rebuild himself using his emerging realization of what had befallen his psyche. This would be told in the nature of the vignettes, and the commonality that begins to emerge between them.

I followed this up with a sample vignette, inviting either of my occasional readers to actually help themselves to it and see what they could make of it, should they be interested. Why not? I wasn't doing anything with it.

Well, here's another piece of tripe, this from a later phase of my fragmentary pieces in the late eighties – the same flood of quick bits that gave us a boy and his Cornelius. So, once again… steal my stuff!!

I slapped the alarm cutoff and spent a full half-second of aural ecstasy in its absence. But enough of that, too; I had to focus my attention on getting this disintegrating scow down in less than twenty pieces.

With the heat shield ablating everywhere it wasn't supposed to, this poor-man's crash-landing was feeling like a mad scientist's toboggan ride into Hell… say, starting at the lip of the Grand Canyon. Picture that? Good; now remove the shock absorbers. And the air conditioner. Pull out your earplugs. And supe up on ultraspeed, about 150 cc's.

What response I was getting from the broken control sticks was more welcome than afterburners in Indianapolis; nonetheless, I'd've given even half my control power for just a little imaging on the screens. It's really nice to be able to see where you're going to get buried –

I pretended the sweat wasn't making my hands slippery, and I prayed the ship into the position I'd almost be able to survive. Pull up, belly down, and ignore all images of the fifties' serials –

You know, some crash-landings don't make any sound at all.

***

How long I'd been sitting on my tuchis, staring at the still-steaming steel-heap, I'll never know. I had slowly come to realize, in less than an eon, that Hell looked remarkably like the last view I'd had through a viewscreen of a flying saucer, only this was about five miles closer.

While considering the possible benefits of standing up, I concluded that I must have been thrown into a Heinlein novel. Boy, that old guy sure could write 'em, couldn't he? I wondered how soon a redhead with a big nose would come sauntering up (nude, or en kilt?), while a smaller part of my brain was inventorying broken bones, bumps, bruises, and chirping birds.

My literary criticism was interrupted by the total: no bones broken, three sprains, a wrench, and three-thousand two-hundred and ninety-four bruises. I noted this as a conservative estimate.

Next cliché: where was I? Roswell, New Mexico? Boy, I'd have fun explaining that one. "You see, President Eisenhower – " or was it Harry Truman?

No Roswell here. Nor New Mexico. Nor Mexicans. What was here was a low hill with a smoking ruin crumpled against one side. No smoldering furrow; I must've almost cleared this rise. On the other side –

Climbing the hill, I listened to my bones and tendons reassure me that they still had nerve-endings, and took the reassurance as a good sign. I didn't complain over eighty decibels. Call it a grunt.

On the other side –

On the other side was the reason I could thank God for placing hills in unexpected places. I was looking on an ocean – well, enormous lake with no opposite shore visible; waves; tide? An ocean.

My strained imagination pictured me trying to get out of a ruined foo-fighter under a hundred feet of water, and being unable to open what remained of a hatch. Or, worse, being able to open it. "The waters come rushing in – "

Someday soon, I really must take up swimming lessons; this doggie-paddle's for the birds. All that water, and just this one li'l hill between me and it –

O most merciful Allah, I most humbly praise thee for thy compassion, most lovingly bestowed on this thy undeserving worm…

I never did see the chappie with the bow; as I fell backward I noticed an arrow had decided to grow out of my chest. My last thought, as I looked up at the dusk racing down on me, was a recollection of an old story: a man had plunged his car down a two-hundred -foot embankment, staggered back up the slope, and through the broken guardrail, only to be struck down and killed instantly by a passing ambulance.

[fragment ends here]

The Job Front: Wits, Hits, Blitz, and Fritz

Friend Spartacus, from his hi-tech bomb shelter in the rugged, wooded wilderness up thataway, was the first to write me back on my recent, voluntary change of employment status:

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2007 11:25 PM
Subject: Re: Change of Address

Hey buddy! Thanks for the update!! Good luck with everything!

I can tell from your letter (and from the posts you've made recently to your blog) that a great weight has been lifted from you. I can sense the excitement and enthusiasm even through the cyberspace.

Sometimes things need to reach (or get VERY close) to the breaking point before we can make a big change. It's like that old story about the Chinese ideograph for "crisis" being the same as the one for "opportunity".

Yes, I will pray for you (and NO, I don't see any contradiction or hypocrisy in that--I'm happy to put some good vibes out there!).

If you need a letter of recommendation or anything else, let me know!!

--

If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little. - George Carlin

So this morning I wrote him back:

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2007 9:17 AM
Subject: RE: Change of A Dress

Thanks for the good word, sir!

Just this morning, sister Mew forwarded me an ad for an executive assistant, so I'll give them a go. The trick to getting a new job is not merely to have a killer résumé; rather – as my recently former boss pointed out a few days ago – it's the same principle for taking awesome photos, where you fill roll after roll with shots: you saturate the area with your résumé. Why focus (literally!) on one blossom, one bird, and cross your fingers before clicking just once? Shoot away! Angle, lighting, depth, distance… maximize your chances. Click, zzzzt! Repeat.

This is how (thanks, Mother!) I got two jobs in one week when I was fifteen or sixteen. Yee-hah!

And I'm looking back mostly for the sake of the friends still there; there's little or no regret, so I doubt I'll be replaced by a pillar of salt. To a couple of these folks, I likened it yesterday to that silly experiment from high school (or semi-wasted college days): you stand centered in a doorway, arms down but pressed hard against the doorframe; stay like this for a couple minutes until your arms actually ache, then step into (or out of) the room.

Voilà! Your arms float upward on their own, and you're standing there with a really goofy grin on your face…

That's how I feel inside.

No contradiction in your praying for me, you! No doctrine is needed – indeed, not even any surety of the infinite or eternal – for doing what genuinely is prayer. You know that, too: it's simply the reaching out with one's inner essence for the sake of someone or something in need… with a sense, at least, that there just may be something greater out there to which this essence joins, and brings strength/healing/resolution to where it's needed.

Father Groeschel occasionally mentions an agnostic he knows who goes to church regularly. Father asked him why, and the man answered with a shrug, "It might all be true!" This goes hand-in-hand with another tale of his, where on Ash Wednesday even some true-Jew yentas show up for their share of the ashes and blessing. He's asked them, too, what brings them there; and with a genuine American-Yiddish shrug (and accent!), they answer, "It couldn't hoit."

That I like!

Thanks also for that letter offer; I may take you up on it where a non-work reference might be requested, someone who can testify absolutely to my fine character, keen moral sense, and unimpeachable highest standard of ethics. So I'll owe you twenty bucks for that, plus the first half-decent blues CD I can shoplift, along with a nickel-bag of the finest Panama Red. Might snub a beggar just for the fun of it (in your name) on the way back home, too.

Hah! I will call on you for a letter of reference for the seminary! So it's not too soon for you to practice your high-school Latin. Repeat after me, and sprinkle liberally through your many drafts:

1. Pange lingua gloriosi!
2. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.
3. Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres; unum eorum incolunt Belgae.
4. Omne bene, sine poena; tempus est ludendi. Venit hora, absque mora, libros deponendi.
5. Vulgariter dictur, quod primo opportet cervum capere, et postea cum captus fuerit, illum excoriare.
6. Sator Arepo tenet opera rotas.

Civile, si ergo: fortibus es in ero. Novili, demis trux; si vatis indem: causan dux.

Actually, all but the first two are non- Church Latin. The sixth one's a palindrome, and that last one is bogus. If you read it out loud, you'll find you're really saying, "See Willy, see 'er go! Forty buses in a row? No, Willy; dem is trucks – see what is in dem: cows and ducks!" Remind me to tell you sometime about the bogus mantra I bought into, courtesy of a smart-aleck high-school English teacher who looked (in the later seventies) like George Carlin did at the time. PS: great tagline of yours there; I like Carlin!

Regards,

Julius Sneezer

Actually also: As I understand it, Spartacus is not truly "agnostic" by most definitions and characterizations; we examined that (i.e., he explained and I apologized for misunderstanding) en passant back in March, while springboarding far away from the topic of… tattooing??!!

Now, onto those lines in Latin:

1. Sing out, O my tongue, of the Glorious! (sixth-century hymn)
2. Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world, grant us peace. (from the Latin Mass)
3. The whole of Gaul is divided into three parts; the Belgians inhabit one of these. (from Caesar’s "On the Gallic War"; my translation)
4. All is well, free of punishment; it’s time to play. The hour is coming – without delay – to lay your school-books down. (quoted by Robert Heinlein in his sweet "Time Enough for Love", though Washington Irving beat him to it by over 150 years; the tentative translation is mine... Heinlein's own (more likely his wife's) is much better – I'll graft it in here once I dig out my copy of that novel)
5. The commoners say that as soon as you capture a stag, once it's captured you gut it. (again, my translation; this line's from the thirteenth century)
6. This is really cool! (And it's wilder than your average palindrome.) My dad first showed me back in high school, and I hazarded a translation back then as "Father Arepo has trouble screwing". Wikipedia – and you've got to see their article on it! – offers "'The sower Arepo holds the wheels with effort", which likely is better translation than my teenage-years attempt.
7. This one I first saw in an Omni magazine competition in the late seventies or very early eighties. That was a great periodical, despite its being a Guccione publication.

I decided my email to Spartacus would serve nicely as a smooth followup to yesterday's post (and APB email itself), so I checked to see if he'd mind my posting it. He answered:

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2007 9:38 AM

You go guy!! Just please take it easy on the homeless beggar. [I'd actually written "slug a beggar", but that really is too crude, so I fixed that before pulling together this current posting]

I'll pass on the Panama Red, in favor of Tampa Red (old bluesman also known as the "Guitar Wizard").

Good luck with the shotgun blast of resume's--I can see them stuck under car windshield wipers like menus from a newly opened Chinese restaurant! Paper Blitz!!!!!!!!

Incredibly, my most recent (and probably last) former girlfriend, Azey (rhymes with "hazy", which she isn't; yesterday I spelled that as "AZ") wrote back first thing this morning with her own sweet encouragement.

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2007 5:17 AM
Subject: RE: Change of Address

Acey, I completely understand about the commute. Life is much too short!!!! Please give me a call sometime and we can catch up. Probably best to do it on the weekend when I have free minutes since I imagine we will be chatting for a very long time.

[I have] a five mile commute one way!!! […] I hope the family is doing well and I am looking forward to your call.

Azey

Will do! Azey was especially loving and supportive when I needed it the very most: grieving over the death of my father. She also was incredibly patient as I later proved to her and to myself that I was a poor choice in boyfriends, and no longer able to reciprocate in kind… or even kindly.

Bless her heart; she's an angel – after those horrendous potholes in our brief road together, she's only sweetness and kindness. An even luckier man will make her a wonderful husband.

Under Wraps... vs. Not Wrapped Too Tightly

Below is the text of an email I sent out earlier this evening to forty friends, former coworkers (other than my immediate department of about twenty), and family. Today I finished serving my two weeks’ notice with the international firm where I’ve been working for four years. Other than with management, I did not share the fact I was leaving with any of my coworkers – it’s in my nature to not want a fuss made over me, nor to stand in a spotlight. But I realized that this attitude, while nonegotistical, was still selfish, since it would keep my friends from the opportunity to say goodbye and to wish me well… and for their sakes I couldn’t deny them this. I love ‘em all. The wider circle of people is receiving this note; I wish I could have spent a little more time with each of them:

Hi, everybody, and I hope you've been enjoying an extended Independence Day weekend!

I just wanted to let you know that – effective this afternoon – the best email address for you to use to reach me is this one, my [ISP] address. As of today – June 29 – I've completed my two-week wrap-up with [this corporation] and no longer work there.

Why is this? Well, it's largely two things: First, there's been the 38-mile commute that rarely required less than 60 or 90 minutes for me to get to work, or back home… and in a couple instances (winter weather excepted) it took me – no kidding – three hours. On an average week, this has added up to ten to fifteen unpaid hours on the road (even by express bus riding the HOV lanes).

So even though I would always arrive with my sense of humor (and car!) intact, my concentration and focus were at times already shot by the time I sat down at my desk. Just imagine playing variable-speed bumper-cars first thing in the morning for an hour or longer, then wind up that day the same way, just about every workday for four years. In between these stretches, spend eight or nine hours regularly catching hand grenades, bowling balls, feathers, raw eggs, and the occasional lit stick of dynamite… and don't drop anything!

This added to stress – quite heavy some days, nearly absent others. But lately I've honestly come to find myself drawing closer and closer to an extreme breaking-point, and have been really worried that this great inner tension would lead me into mistakes that would get me fired, or keep me from doing work of a quality that my employers (and paycheck!) deserved.

I couldn't be the hardest worker there, nor even the most sensitive one. But I'd reached my own personal limit, and had begun to stretch even beyond that line also. Something simply had to give, or I had to back out.

(I apologize to my recent coworkers with whom I didn't share my upcoming departure, even though I did give and serve two weeks' notice. I've been looking forward to a low-key, minimal-fuss transition out. Some well-wishers still managed to find me, and I'm warmed that I did get to spend some of these last two weeks with them; I wish I could have pulled all of you in… but then I wouldn't have had enough time to wrap everything up smoothly.)

And, second, I've badly needed that ten- to fifteen-hour stretch for other demands, most especially studies. Granted, this could be done via online classes and a reliable laptop computer while riding the commuter bus – so as an experiment last year, while riding the bus I tried to read novels, books on church history, and so on… but found I was still getting too easily distracted, and couldn't readily stay focused on these texts. And I don't want my academic grades to depend on this.

Still lacking a Bachelor's Degree here in my mid-forties, I’ve been aching to fill in that gap, and (with family encouragement) have finally registered at the local community college. I was hoping to get in a summer class, but it looks like I'll be joining the student-ranks in September instead – part-time, and possibly online still… but not while studying on a moving bus, trying to ignore conversations all around me, and curious eyes over my shoulder.

Target One, though, is to nail down a position back here in [this town] (or darned near to it). I will not ride the [long interstate] corridor again (unless I get really desperate). This will take the lion's share of my daytime attention, beginning with an overhaul and polishing-up of my résumé and stock of cover letters. (Months ago I promised a dear friend I'd help her with hers, but have yet to do even do that… and I feel terrible about letting her down. Hang in there, AZ – you're next, after my own!)

I've had leads passed my way, and I most certainly welcome them – and will also continue plowing through the employment resources I've got at hand as well. I'll keep you updated as much as I can.

Longer-term personal path – which I've been focusing on more and more ardently on, these last several years – has me studying for the priesthood, deaconate, or professed religious life (i.e., monk/brother) and taking vows. Yes, age is a factor. But I recently discovered the Blessed John XXIII National Seminary in Weston, Massachusetts, is taking applications from older men pursuing "late" or "second" vocations, ranging in age from 30 to 60 (and I'm just about in the middle of that range).

Weston is also where my uncle was ordained, and this seminary is across town from where my mother went to college [Alma]… and isn't too terribly far from [a certain town] (my first home, after the Boston hospital), nor from [a certain suburb], where one of my sisters (and brother-in-law) lives. They do take non-degreed applicants as well (about 10% of their incoming student body, if I'm reading that right), although – with the application process taking several months – there's a bit of a window here where I can get my last few remaining credits in the interim.

So I'll be researching this "later-on" step, too – I need to know what kind of course concentration they'll be looking for. Even more than wishing me well, please pray for me.

I'm sorry about how long this letter's gotten! I've been in little or no significant touch with most of you lately, but it's not been through having forgotten any of you… I really have been busy – and will be for a while yet. And you deserve my taking some time at least to catch all of you up! Thanks for your patience and understanding.

I feel a great sense of relief and peace right now, along with a genuine excitement over whatever might be next for me. But I can't rest on that, of course. So it's still work-work-work for me… but this smile runs a lot deeper now!

Take care, all of you. More soon.

Regards,

AgingChild

 

Way, Way Out

Other than the 1,530 spams I've garnered (and I'm not kidding, either) since late January…

…only once have I gotten a response to my postings that might be from so far out of left field as to have originated in another ballpark entirely. That was in early March, when I was commenting on another blog that had spotlighted a Cardinal's assertion that the Antichrist would be a liberal.

In that blog, I first pondered the nature of the Antichrist, based on biblical revelation as explained by Christ's teaching arm, the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, and intuiting my way cautiously from there. On reflection, it seemed to me that, yes, the Antichrist would almost have to be a liberal (and I'm speaking as a man firmly left of center, no less). This is troubling.

And someone happened on that posting of mine and responded; though I'm certainly not in strong agreement with him, I gave him the soapbox so as to add another voice. We exchanged opinions for a bit, and I think both benefited from the dialog.

The second respondent… well, he seemed at the least to be an anti-Semite Islamist – so I kindly aired his dirty laundry, in a manner of speaking, toward the end of that same post. He had written (and sic):

Zionism (of the Judaizer) is the force that seeks to be higher then the most high. The zionist is he who seeks a pervese dual-covenant with god. Zionism is god, and god is zionism: the jewish people are their own Messiah, "Israel is our best friend", believed by the likes of our President and Pat Robertson.The anti-christ is identified, no further speculation or numerology required, it should be obvious to any Christian that these Zionists are our Satanic Agent Provocateurs.

The fellow knows little about Judaism and the history of God's covenant-making throughout Jewish religious writings (e.g., Moses and Noah, to name two of at least seven) – particularly the portion inherited by Christians as the Old Testament. He also seemed ignorant of the humble pacifism that's at the heart of Islam… and which is largely overlooked as well by far too many of Muhammad's heirs.

So with genuine khutzpah, I lectured him on Islam. No response back; Allahu akbar.

Well. Yesterday's post where I mused on the mercy of Jesus as judge earned me this response from somewhere in outer space:

My inaugural address at the Great White Throne Judgment of the Dead, after I have raptured out billions! The Secret Rapture soon, by my hand!

He added, Read My Inaugural Address, and also provided a link to his site:

http://www.angelfire.com/crazy/spaceman

This chap… well, I'd like to call him a complete wack-a-doo, a total nutcase, but that would be judgmental. Suffice it to say that he wasn't just from beyond left field… he seemed to have originated in another sports league altogether.

Don't take my word for it; check this merry fellow out and see how he comes across to you. Judgmentality warning: I think he's done a few too many psilocybin mushrooms and/or licked more than his share Colorado River toads, maybe also taken in one too many Roswell events.

I've run out of time this evening, but I'd really like to have a go at this tomorrow from a couple different directions:

• There will be no "rapture".

• Jesus as an alien… and God driving a flying saucer, for that matter.

I'll need to stop snickering first, though. (I've quoted the Good Admiral Heinlein on this before: One man's theology is another man's belly-laugh.)

When the Mute Speak Again

Want to have a little fun with someone who fancies that they know their Christianity, Christian history, theology, Bible, and so on?

Just ask them who the greatest man in the Bible was.

Jesus?

Wrong.

Really! Jesus was a man, yes, and all man, and human – or he could not have died. But he was also divine, or he could not have risen again. Unique to all of creation and beyond, Jesus has two natures: the divine and the human. This was clarified in the fifth century. I'll spare you the heavy theology on the hypostatic union, the Council of Chalcedon (and the first Nicean Council), monophysitism, arianism, modalism, and other issues – suffice it to say that this was settled over 1,500 years ago. You and I are humans, the dog over there's a dog, a planet's a planet (unless it's Pluto): each has its own, single, defining nature. But Jesus has two.

So, no, Jesus was not the greatest man in the Bible because he wasn't only a man.

Moses? Good try; no. Elijah? Jeremiah? Jonah? Adam??

Heh-heh. Nope.

If you trust the authority of Jesus as a teacher (as he was addressed in his own time; the word in Hebrew is "rabbi", or even "rabboni"; I believe the Aramaic word is the same), you have the answer. Look up Matthew 11:11 – if you're a Protestant, you've got the page marked and the words underlined. If you're a Catholic, just look over that Protestant's shoulder, since you probably aren't sure where to find Matthew.

Right there it is. Jesus says, "Among those born of women, there has been none greater than John the Baptist." As I said in my previous posting, you wanna call him a liar?

Today the Church celebrates the birth of John the Baptist (officially, "The Solemnity of the Nativity of John the Baptist"): half a year before Christmas. What does that have to do with it? Well, this is because Jesus was conceived when Elizabeth, John's mother, was six months pregnant with John.

So for this week (and maybe a bit longer), the header for this blog is a detail from Fra Angelico's fifteenth-century painting, "The Naming of John the Baptist". (Likely when you read this, though, I'll have changed the header image again.)

Anyway, I propounded on Elizabeth's pregnancy (among the usual array of other topics) back on Mothers' Day, so I won't repeat it here. This painting, now, corresponds to the scene that followed after John's birth (you can find in Luke 1:57-80), where Zechariah (Elizabeth's husband) has wised up after nine months of being struck deaf-mute. He'd literally had the fear of God thrust on him by scoffing at an angel's announcement of Elizabeth's unexpected pregnancy, so now quite obediently he does exactly as that angel had commanded, and writes down that his son must be called John.

With his tongue loosened back up and ego refreshingly long-since humbled, he breaks into a sweet, inspired prayer that beautifully parallels Mary's own canticle, the Magnificat. My guess is that he never lived to see his son's ministry as a preacher in the desert, but there can be no doubt that he drew great comfort in knowing there was a clear and beautiful destiny that would unfold for his son… who, in growing up under God's "tender mercy" (I like that phrase), would "guide our feet into the path of peace" as the greatest man ever born.

Jezu, Ufam Tobie

In a book as vast and ancient as the Bible, any of us even just somewhat familiar with its contents will be especially fond of particular passages (e.g., "The Lord is my shepherd..."). I've mentioned several before, such as:

• Psalm 19:2, "The heavens proclaim God's glory, and the skies His great skill" – just looking at the clouds and stars and galaxies and nebulae quash the concepts of agnosticism and atheism;
• A verse from another Psalm, 116:15, "Too great a loss to the Lord is the death of those who love him", which was some consolation to me after my father (and others since) died suddenly... perhaps this verse may end up on his gravestone;
• John 8:3-11, where Jesus gave total mercy and compassion to a woman flawed and weak like the rest of us. He had been raised in, and taught, the Halakha, or Mosaic law, and as a devout Jew he followed it – though with a clear eye on the spirit and intent and aim of the law. In this particular instance, Mosaic law called for the woman to be put to death… but instead, with deep love and infinite kindness he simply said she was not condemned "Just don't do that anymore, okay?" he said to her, in essence;
• And another look at blindly following of the law, versus contrition and mercy: Luke 18:10-13. Here, again, you approach God not with comfort in doing as you are told, but rather with a recognition that you – we – consistently fail utterly in obedience. Before Communion, we pray: "Lord, I am not worthy to receive You. But only say the word, and I shall be healed." This echoes the words of a centurion to Jesus in Matthew 8:5-13 (also Luke 7:1-17); not even a Jew, this Roman officer knew clearly where he stood in relation to the holiness of that itinerant rabbi.

Thus I take immense comfort from the words of our late Holy Father, John Paul II: "The greater the penitent's moral misery, the greater should be the mercy shown." In a vision to St. Faustina Kowalska in the 1930s, Jesus stated: "The greater the sinner, the greater the right he has to My mercy."

This is my only hope! Father Benedict Groeschel explains that come Judgment Day, the first thing he's going to say to Jesus will be (in quavering, truly pitiable voice): "Me-e-rcy! Me-e-e-rcy!" And if that doesn't do it, he'll fall back on the simple and honest, "I trusted you, Jesus." This sweet and humble priest is a shoo-in, and likely won't have need to throw himself on the mercy of the court.

Me? The good father has written my lines! It's not a technicality, since Jesus could easily respond with, "No you didn't." (Wanna call Him a liar?) So if you want to have those words in your back pocket, go for it – but you'd better live them, too. I'm trying…

The Next Step

The coolest thing about the internet is that it is like nothing so much as a near-infinite encyclopedia, where you hardly have to pull down another volume and flip through the pages to find something you're looking for. If as a kid you never got delightfully lost in an encyclopedia while trying to look up information, then this posting may not be for you. If you prefer what my dad used to call "The Columbus Method" (find it, and land on it), then my enthusiasm today is likely lost on you. I'm sorry, my friend; you may have grown up too soon. Me… I never will. Jesus says that's okay, too: check out Mark 10:14-16 and Matthew 18:2-5.

I can waste richly enjoy a lot of time surfing the 'net while trying to look something up. I don't click on links at random, and never at a site I don't know something about – but I just love how yet another whole new sheaf of information unrolls at a single, choice click. The term "hyperlink" is very apt – you basically step through an electronic space-warp, and come through in a whole new place: click on a reference on one webpage and poof! you're halfway across the galaxy! Whee!!

So with Portia (Daughter Two) soon due to start her last year of high school, and thence enter college, the hands-on phase of my role as her dad – which has generally been very peripheral at best (and thus always will be an ache in my heart) – wraps up. Already in my mid-forties, I need to really move it with getting into a monastery/seminary, nailing down my bachelor's degree (if necessary) first.

Thus this evening, after days pondering my next move in the career/professional world, I started e- space-warping around the internet universe to see which US monasteries/seminaries take late-life postulants. I'd heard one mentioned on EWTN a few months ago, but didn't note the name fast enough, and recall only that it was (probably) in New England… where I entered this world in first place. (Well, conceived overseas, but took my first earthly breath in Boston.)

Older men and women entering into a professed religious order (or clergy as well, for the men) are referred to as having a "late vocation" or "second vocation". So throwing that term into my search mix, I soon landed in a Catholic chatroom-thread where several participants (mostly women) were discussing their late vocations – some still pursuing them, and others since professed. A young seminarian contributed this [spellings are all his]:

A somewhat unrelated bit of intresting information. As far as later vocation to the diocesan priesthood (what are refered to as second vocations) there is a special national seminary just for them. It is up in new england it called Blessed John XVIII National Seminary.

Bingo!

I quickly found the Blessed JohnXXIII National Seminary in Weston, Massachusetts… and check this out: "A tested priestly formation program since 1964 for men 30 to 60 years of age". Yee-hah! I mean, Yeshua!

They're just up the road from my late grandparents' (and my mother's, and my babyhood's) home in Dedham, and just as far from another suburb where my sister Alicia (and baby-to-be) and husband Levi live (except I believe they're still in Italy). I am psyched!!

More than once when Shellie (Daughter One) would get extremely wound up as a pre-teen, she'd shriek, and run furious laps through the kitchen, dining-room, and living-room, over and over. Likely I indulged her too much on too many things (as with both daughters), but this was just too funny to see for me to quell it.

Well, I want to do that right now. Woo-hoo!

More as it develops; now, if you'll excuse me, I need to wear a smoking oval groove in the carpet.

...Or Hardly Working?

You'd think that with the house to myself all week I'd be getting even more things done, or have slobbed out into a totally unwound vegetable... whatever that might be. Yet neither's the case; the long drive to/from work's been easier, and even the load on me once I'm there is substantially lighter (I'll probably get to that next weekend, though).

But most of this week at home, I've been putting away stamps, and online just cleaning up older blog-entries where WordPress horridly chopped up lines. Ah, downtime...Plus I've been looking in on sister Mew's home, since she and husband and kids are busy turning lobster-red ─ with one of my daughters, and my mother ─ in the North Carolina sands.

And it's certainly been quieter around the office with both Ben and Jerry ─ no, that's ice cream; I mean Ben and Hugo ─ gone. Ben hit the road at the beginning of the month, and Hugo followed last week. So the pun-audience just isn't the same: Ben and I to shamelessly encourage each other, and Hugo to stomp us back down.

So let's look back at some of our exchanges, yes?

Item 1: I was working loudly in one of our metal file-cabinets one morning, converting it from storage to file-holding, and installing a heavy metal bar (Hey, is that where all the drunks listen to Twisted Sister?) for the metal hooks on our hanging files to, well, hook onto.

At the continued racket, Ben called from his cubicle: "If you're having trouble with your drawers, get a belt."

Picturing a cold, full shotglass, I answered, "Not this early in the day; that would leave me comatose." And finished up on the cabinet.

Then I popped my head into Ben's cubicle and explained further, "Look; you must think I'm married to my drawers, but I'm not; it's my pants. Why, I grabbed hold of them this morning" (here I gripped the top of my slacks and tugged firmly upward) "and said to them, ‘Let's get hitched'!"

Item 2: Among my many other responsibilities there, every Thursday I consolidate employees' summaries of activity, and statistics of particular duties, and submit this compilation to the Director. He polishes it up, sets it on Simmer, stirs a bit, then forwards it to his boss (one of our VPs) and back to us. Unavoidably, this weekly activity report is called a WAR ─ a genuine acronym, like SCUBA, LASER, RADAR, and so on.

Ben was notorious with me for never, never, never submitting anything to me. Week after week I'd pester him ─ respectfully, since he was a semi-boss. One Thursday, as he was walking past my desk, I made the mistake of asking: "How's that WAR coming along, Ben?"

He stopped and explained cheerfully, "Fighting in Anbar province has gone down, but trouble continues in Baghdad. There have been roadside bombs..."

"Even though it's still Spring," I interrupted with a grumble, "I'll take that as your summery."

Ben snorted. "I'm not going to Fall for that," he riposted.

I moaned, "Oh, the Winter of my discontent! That's it; I'm calling Frankie Valli!"

Item 3: Hugo wandered into Ben's cubicle and plopped himself down heavily in one of Ben's guest-chairs. "Oy."

Ben answered him: "Later today."

Hugo: "What?"

Ben: "I'll try to have it to you later today." I hadn't the slightest idea what they were talking about.

Hugo growled firmly, "No ─ there is no ‘try'! I can take your cubicle apart." He got up and walked away, passing my desk.

I pointed out ─ quoting The Empire Strikes Back: "You sound like Yoda ─ ‘Do, or do not; there is no try'."

Hugo dismissed the reference. "No. Yoda is nice. I am not."

Our fathers, who art…

Shellie (Daughter One) called me Saturday to say she'd be coming by for a while (she lives across town). How come?

"Well," she explained considerately, "since we're going to the Outer Banks on Fathers' Day, this afternoon we'll be able to hang out together. Plus I need some gas money."

This is why – in her mid-twenties – I still call her a brat. I also gave her gas-money plus.

So while she and my mother, and my sister Mew and her two teen kids (husband Arnie follows next weekend) were on the road to North Carolina this afternoon, I hit the road myself and paid my own dad, and my father-in-law, a visit.

You see, Dad died in 2003, and three days later Norman – my father-in-law – died too; they're buried within thirty miles of each other. So I brought them each flowers, and also left roses at my dad's memorial tree and plaque on the Pennsylvania campus where he'd taught nearly forty years (and within sight of his former office).

Why me? Well, older brother Sarge had office-work that badly needed attention, younger brother Doc is recovering from surgery, Mew was chasing my daughter down Interstate 95, and youngest sister Alicia and her husband (and baby-to-be) are in Italy. So I went – and called Sarge and Doc and Mew each while at Dad's grave, so they could be there too.

(Also gave Spartacus a holler before I left that little town, since Dad's tree is just over the hill (so to speak) from the elementary school Sparks and I had gone to forty years ago. Someday I'll remember to get a photo of that school, send it to him, and see if this can trigger some PTSD…)

Why to my in-laws' grave also? Because Norm and Nan (she'd followed her husband into eternity two years ago) were the only parents-in-law I've ever had, even though their daughter and I separated and divorced over twenty years ago. And they had been devoted grandparents to Shellie (and she was their favorite of eight-some grandchildren), and had remained on friendly terms with me, something I treasured about them.

In her last years, Nan had also been very welcoming of my younger daughter Portia when we'd stop by to visit, and this too I treasured. A kindness to a child is a kindness to the parent.

And kindnesses to the parent, too, should not be overlooked… and not just when it's time to clean the stone again, and leave flowers and a prayer. Since I'm running out of parents, I've tried hard to be especially kind to my mother, and patient with her… and the last several years have made this easier somehow. I counsel friends of all ages to do the same to their own parents.

I'm so greatly relieved, as I've mentioned before, that I was increasingly kind and warm and patient with Dad in his last several years – this is a deep consolation, now that I can't sit down with him in Pizza Hut or Olive Garden anymore. And his equally warm-and-patient response, though more subtle, came to make up for terrible times we saw, growing up and in our early adulthood.

Time heals all.

Hoc Est Enim Corpus Meum

I've been busy of late; and while eager to get more copy up here – a final week of puns with Ben, some more of my writings for you to steal, spiritual and familial meditations, and so on – time's been tight. And even when I've had a good amount of time (e.g., this weekend), anything from household chores (painting, lawn mowing and edging, laundry) to attention-drainers (a staggering several pounds of fresh-received stamps to sort through; mindless, distracted websurfing) have really pulled me from my self-set responsibility to keep this site busy, and both of my readers engaged.

Can't tonight, though! Besides an extraordinarily high amount of stress at work recently (enough so that I'm strongly pondering turning in my badge), I've also been in meditation much of the day – while doing those above-mentioned chores, and distractions – on today's Feast Day in the Church, a day set aside to honor the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist (=Communion)… body, blood, soul, and divinity. And I wanted to write up a good several pages on this core credo/doctrine of the Faith (and a spiritual pivot-point for me), but that will have to wait a few days.

I'll bring in the text of John 6:30-68; you're welcome to read it in the meantime. Our Protestant brothers and sisters will generally read the Bible very literally (e.g., at times even to the great extreme of believing thereby that the universe truly was created in six days, and thus is barely more than six thousand years old)… yet this passage they skip over and almost always do not read literally – even while their Catholic cousins do.

What does Jesus say there? Simply – in advance of his Last Supper – that the bread and wine really do become his body and blood. I'll show how he was not speaking symbolically, and how the Church (indeed, essentially all of Christianity through its first fifteen centuries) believed this absolutely, and taught it from the very beginning.

I'll even tell you how (after thirty-some years) it helped me to have a good several decades of reading and watching science fiction for me to suddenly be able to wrap my intellect around this seemingly absurd notion.

(A priest on EWTN once delightfully pointed out that if Jesus (who is God) as creator could make something out of nothing (which is what “create” means)… can't he make something out of something else?)

Again, no time now; so let me leave you with five simple words: What if this is true?

And PS: check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCmLmZDpB4I.

All in the Family: Zeroes, and Heroes

Well!

My sister Mew emailed me this morning – she'd read yesterday's blog! This is actually a bit embarrassing… I mean, I've mentioned to my family that I've been blogging (not as much lately, alas) since late January, and once or twice I've sent them links to an actual posting; yes. But I'd forgotten… and honestly don't write for the accolades, any more than a kid doing cartwheels out in a field is doing so for cheers. 

For me, and for that kid, it's just for fun and for practice (in my case, to improve my writing). So just as that kid would stop and gape and sputter if some people dropped out of the trees and started clapping, a kind word from family (not that anyone would mind!) grinds me to a halt for a moment, has me scratching my head and blushing. Oh, well – not trying to hide, either. 

With an especially complimentary subject-line of "Wonderful!", Mew wrote as much to clarify something I'd misstated:

Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 10:24 AM

AC,

You had a great blog entry this weekend about your participation in the Susan B. Komen race for a cure! Way to go! that must have been tremendously uplifting (and yes, I'm a blog stalker...)

But I do have a correction for you - JT didn't have bone marrow cancer. Bone marrow cancer usually occurs in the shafts of the long bones - and is usually the result of a cancerous spread from another part of the body. JT's type of Leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, is a cancer of the white blood cells, with lymphoblastic leukemia being a cancer of the lymphoid portion of the white blood cells. JT was very lucky as his Leukemia was confined to his bone marrow and a few stray leukemic blasts in his blood.

Here's a writeup on bone marrow cancer: And also one on childhood acute lymphoblasticleukemia. 

I'm also attaching a picture taken at the Relay for Life last month -

- the lady walking beside him that has her arm entwined in JT's is a fellow survivor of cancer (not sure which type) as they walk the Survivor's Lap during the Relay. She's the principal for a local elementary school.

Mew

The Relay for Life that Mew mentions was a particularly touching event held last month in that pleasant little town in west-central Maryland, Frederick (I've mentioned it here now and then; even did a run there once). The Relay for Life is a celebration both of survivors of, and loved ones lost to, cancer; Mew had invited me and my daughters to join her and JT there… although it turned out I let other demands get in the way; wish I'd made it! 

So naturally I wrote right back to her this morning:

Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 10:52 AM

Thanks for the correction, and I'll fix it!

Somehow I'd been thinking JT had had bone marrow cancer; sorry about that particular inaccuracy. Would you mind if I include your email (with the usual change of name for privacy), and the photo, in a followup? You've probably noticed that when time permits, I really try to include links and sources; I want anything I put out there to be as accurate as I can make it (also means a several-paragraph entry like last night's can sometimes take a couple hours to pull together). Not only would this be a lot more considerate of JT (and his mom!), but it would serve to further educate my two or three readers, plus (what I count on even more) strangers stumbling onto the entry. 

Now, blog stalking… what the Helvis (as Mother says)?! Busy as you are, you've got to have more important stuff to do online! Oh, well; I'm not trying to hide, either… just wish I could get stuff up there more often than the once or twice a week I've managed lately. (I've already got a backlog!)

But if you do run out of things to do every so often, and see something that's inaccurate, wrong, or in need of rewriting, let me know.

Thanks again!

Regards,

AgingChild 

I was still shaking my head. And I wanted to give her (and especially JT) credit for their own struggle over the years, and in particular for the type of cancer he battled successfully. Mew has a wonderful webpage up on the Net, detailing JT's long struggle during his youngest years. Touchingly, she calls him her hero. How many mothers say that, most especially from the heart?

Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 10:57 AM

Sure you can include the email & photo - no problem. I'm not a major blog stalker, I just have a few I check from time to time including yours :) 

Mew

Gulp. How many dirty jokes have I posted? Uh, one, now that I think of it. No questionable photos? Nope. Links to trashy sites? Zilch. Rough language? Well, yes, in a few quotes from either irate jerks, or indignant friends. So I'm clear; nothing to be embarrassed about here. But still… 

So I sent back to her a photo of Edward Platt (of the classic sixties sitcom "Get Smart") rolling his eyes with barely restrained impatience; no words:

She answered:

Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 11:56 AM

ha ha  

Okay, that kind of accolade works for me.