Maybe on Thursday

Just the threat of snow can keep me from going down to the prison. My worries don’t lie in my being able to drive well, but in what I’ve seen of other drivers. The day after a good snow, the ditches are populated by the cars of those in a hurry, with bald tires, lacking good judgment, or feeling invincible with all-wheel drive.

Work as a volunteer prison chaplain is not urgent work; it just needs to be fairly steady. The men actually worry about my traveling back and forth as it is. My taking chances would not be appreciated.

Maybe on Thursday.

An honest discussion would be good to see

This commentary and the associated articles help to inform a persistent issue among the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. An honest discussion on the topic of homosexuality would be good to see.

Perpetuating injustices doesn’t strike me as discipleship. Suppression in the absence of prayerful understanding has gone on too long.

Let her keep talking

Just in case you missed seeing Sarah Palin’s address to the gathering of Tea Party Nation, it is worth watching.

Listening to her used to make me angry, more so when there was that foolishly created chance of her being anywhere near The White House. Now I say, let her keep talking. But I do still wonder if she has any idea what she is talking about, any idea of what has transpired over the past decade, a clue to the implications of her flip “advice.” The uninformed sure do love her.

I do agree with her, wholeheartedly, that we should “put our government back on the side of the people.” Perhaps she is unaware of why the last election turned out as it did, or what “on the side of the people” really means. She does give some indication, however, when she continues to refer to “real Americans,”  code for an endless list of reasons for denying access to opportunity for a lot of folks.

Lower taxes, war that was off-budget and unnecessary,  and the myth of less government to allow  unconstrained market forces during the Bush administration got us into this mess. The Tea Party movement and the party of “no” continue to forget those facts.

Which is more laughable?

Talk about a pendulum swing during this snowy Saturday!

The morning began with an opportunity for me to speak to a church group about the death penalty. This particular group meets once per month for an 8:00 pro-life Mass followed by a meeting. They had not covered the topic of capital punishment, at least not recently.

A few parents, who have sons on death row, were there on behalf of the Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (MADP). The general discussion went very well with thoughtful questions and a sincere interest to learn more. Literature with information and website URLs was made available. One site they were encouraged to visit is the Death Penalty Information Center.

So, later in the day I received an email notice of a posting in NCRonline referring to former President George W. Bush’s receiving a pro-life award from a group of Catholic business men. I don’t know which is more laughable, Bush being seen as pro-life, or Catholic business men believing Bush’s behavior to be pro-life.

The Catholic Church sure has gotten into a rut. Seldom is there a public face put on anything other than abortion or stem cell research. There is, or course,  an occasional article on Catholic social teachings and social justice issues in archdiocesan papers, but that is not what I would call public dissemination. I don’t even know many Catholics who read them.

More needs to be done. Voices need to be raised. Besides pedophilia and abortion, I wonder what the public image is for the Catholic Church of the 21st century. Thank goodness for the Catholic Relief Services (CRS). They can single-handedly give the Church a good name.

I can’t help but believe that if a symphony orchestra played one note all evening, people would be walking out throughout the entire performance … and some rather early too. It is of little surprise, then, that people are drifting away from the Catholic Church.

What a treat!

On Thursday, January 21, we headed for a conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, presided over by Richard Rohr of the Center for Action and Contemplation. I had heard Fr. Richard  speak in 2006 at a Catholic Coalition on Preaching convocation in Fort Lauderdale.  This seemed like a good opportunity to see and hear him once again. This time, however, it would not be seeing him as a guest speaker, but at a weekend event of his own design with content of great interest to me.

This conference was entitled, Following the Mystics Through the Narrow Gates. A note on the website says, “Seeing God in all things and all things in God, we experience the peace that surpasses understanding”. My bookshelf is filled with attempts to tune into the general message the mystics attempt to convey. I have books on, or by, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, Thomas Merton, the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing.  But my main intention was to gain a greater insight for my prison ministry.

The men I see each week, those in solitary confinement, are very aware of a divine presence in their spare lives. Attempts to be free from the distractions and temptations of everyday life are not of much concern for them. Everything has been taken away. Their rooms are devoid of any and all uplifting content, things to occupy their minds. There is plenty of time for reflection, and plenty of time for despair.

So I was anxious to go and didn’t know what to expect. Shortly after having registered in November, I did notice on their website that the conference was sold out. This was good news to me since there would be much interaction and discussion among the 150 to 200 in attendance. Upon arrival, I learned there were 1200 in attendance! Unexpected and exciting.

The schedule indicated sessions/presentations would be alternating between Richard Rohr and James Finley, about whom I knew absolutely nothing. What a treat! Anytime one can feel they’ve gotten their money’s worth in the first few minutes of a three-day conference, it is a real bonanza. I also came home feeling very uplifted in our faith tradition.

Once the post-conference materials are available, I’ll try to distill the whole works into smaller portions I can share.

Not a happy activity

Having space in our house held hostage by a couple sets of old encyclopedias was resolved this morning. After repeated attempts to find a home for them, I drove to a recycling company which handles hardcover books. Slipping them into a slot on the top of a green dumpster was not a happy activity. I grew up too soon following the Great Depression to enjoy tossing anything that holds many hours of labor and years of quality care.

The  Encyclopedia Britannica was an absolutely stunning set. Believe me, if we were in a larger space with book shelves to burn, they would still be here … dark blue imitation leather with brilliant gold lettering and all in excellent condition. But the 1947 vintage had them totally useless as a source of information. We never looked at them, and one could hardly expect anyone else to use them. An interior designer could have stuck them in someone’s mansion, I suppose.

The set of Collier’s was of little interest other than as a constant reminder of how slick a young sales lady can be with a young married couple anxious to have good educational material in the home for any future children. That set, along with yearbooks covering 1964 to 1992, also went to the recycler. That the yearbooks couldn’t have been of use somewhere is still a mystery since what happens in a given year doesn’t become (too) obsolete. But I guess all that stuff can be Googled more easily and more quickly.

Yesterday, I delivered an entire set of the Harvard Classics to a used bookstore as a donation.  It was known as a “five-foot shelf of fiction” back in the day. Proceeds of any sale will go to aid adults with disabilities. I believe my grandmother purchased the set in the 20s, and there was no evidence any of them had ever been read.

So, nearly 200 books have left the house. Our college textbooks are slowly moving into the crosshairs. Texts for two bachelor degrees and three masters programs do pile up. But somehow they have been treasured. Never mind that some of the books are nearly 50 years old, traveled from house to house, and sit in boxes having multiple van line stickers on them.

What brings all this about? Memories of dumping tons of stuff into a huge dumpster parked behind my parents’ home. Things they held dear were of no value to any of us as we plowed through a basement filled to the rafters. We can at least direct some of our stuff into recycle programs rather than have it all go to a landfill.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that the things remaining behind will be seen as anything but trash when our dwelling place has its final cleaning by those we leave behind.