St. Mary's - Quad City Interfaith - Sam. . .stuff

I'm the president of the Parish Council of St. Mary's. I also represent St. Mary's on the board of Quad City Interfaith. One of my favorite ways to communicate is e-mail, and I periodically send messages to our council and some folks, and here's one I sent tonight (trust me, there's nothing confidential or proprietary or even a little gossipy in this. But who knows? there might be something you'd find interesting or helpful or. . .something.)

"Hello, all, and God's blessings be with you.

Quad City Interfaith will be holding a Trivia Night this Saturday, March 2. It will be at the K. of C., 1111 W. 35th, downstairs. $10/person. Doors open at 6:30, trivia starts at 7:00. Bring your own food, beverages must be purchased on-site. We are sincerely really and truly hoping to fill at least one table from St. Mary's. Come one, come all for a night of fun and fellowship and trivia!

Oh - and baskets. My wife is among those who have put together baskets for this. Now if she would only let me see what's in one. . .

We took a survey at last weekend's Masses. In conjunction with Quad City Interfaith and some other area congregations St. Mary's is participating in Rekindling Our Congregations. The survey was to get a sense of what matters most to our members, and what we would have a Core Group do to help out. The actions wanted may be within our parish, or neighborhood, or larger community. A Core Group can be a wonderful instrument for good. Let's make it such.

Speaking of. . .We recently had a Saturday workshop of some QCI board members with Sam Finkelstein from Gamaliel of Illinois. One of the topics was 1x1 conversations. One-on-ones are a foundation of community organizing. Toward the end of the discussion we were asked how many 1x1s we could have toward building our Core Team. People would say eight or ten from their congregations. Sam said he has ten a day. (From anyone else that would be unbelievable. You should meet Sam. Really big bundle of energy in a really small package. He just might do ten a day.) I guess I might have stood out for my answer: "One." We at St. Mary's have the advantage of already having a Core Group, and what I'd like to see accomplished: every person involved with our Core Group to talk about our work, and invite one person to join us. Just one. Do I have anyone in mind? I cheated. I have two or three in mind. If any or all of the ones I have in mind do get involved, I plan to do a little mentoring, but not too much. The ones I have in mind need no handholding. They're smart, tough, and independent. Ask their opinion, and you're liable to get it. Once involved, they each will have a voice to be heard. I am so hoping. . .

So, God bless. . .have a great night. . .see you Saturday!"

Thanks for hanging out for a few!

On Wednesdays during Lent, except for Ash Wednesday and Wednesday of Holy Week, St. Mary's has a soup supper. The soup's good, the fellowship is better.

I'm a St. Mary's guy. I live about 5 minutes in one direction from St. John Vianney in Bettendorf, and about the same distance in the other direction from Our Lady of Lourdes (yes, Bettendorf does seem to have had a thing about French saints.) On my way to weekend Mass, in order to get to St. Mary's I drive past two other parishes: Sacred Heart Cathedral (east side of Davenport, above the hill), and St. Anthony's (downtown.) I like St. Mary's for several reasons. More on that some other time.

I have a headache now. I've had a couple of episodes of pretty severe and long-lasting vertigo recently. I recently had an MRI in connection, and I'm told there is evidence of an old stroke. It affected the left side of my brain. What I don't know is how old, and what the damage was. Was that what was going on in those episodes of vertigo? I don't know for sure, but it would seem reasonable to think so. Anyway, neurologist on March 18.

Headache and tired. 'Nuff for today. Thanks for the company!

I am really really tired tonight.

Tonight was the fourth Tuesday of the month. Almost all of my Tuesday nights are taken up with something. The fourth Tuesday is the night of the meeting of the Quad City Interfaith immigrant task force. Only tonight, what with the winter storm, only Cindy and I showed up. And Cheryl. And Meri. And Kaitlin.

Kaitlin is a wonderful young lady. She must be; she gets my jokes. When we moved into the building we're in now, she and her family lived across the hall. The families drew close, and Kaitlin adopted us as her grandparents. Then, last weekend, Kaitlin and Cindy were looking through some of Cindy's family photos, when Kaitlin asked, "What's my grandma doing in your scrapbook?" and Cindy replied, "That's my aunt!" Small world - she really is family. And we're glad of it.

My interest in human trafficking - especially in areas of domestic servitude and agricultural labor- was a byproduct of my interest in immigration, and my concern with the horrors of the sex trade arose largely from the proximity of one of the larger centers of the trade to where we live. Whether you know it or not it's also close to where you are. Even in the placest that people think is least likely. Got a truck stop in Boise? Massage parlor in Salt Lake? Trust me - it's under your nose.

A second area of concern for me is wage theft. It happens all over the place. Immigrants are shipped in to work under slave conditions, then two days before payday ICE shows up. The timing is coincidence, I'm sure. Workers are paid below minimum wage. Or, they are told, "No overtime, under any circumstances." Then they are given a pile of work that would take 50 hours to do, and told to have it done within the week. The expectation is that the worker will "donate" the other 10 hours. I have worked in a situation in which I was expected to take work home, but it was not allowed that anyone would claim overtime. "Donation" was expected. The more appropriate term was never used: "Theft." Wal-Mart workers are forced to work through their breaks, but don't single out Wal-Mart. I doubt that Target or K-Mart or any ot the other retailers are different.

What can we do about this? I've discussed (I think!) our adventure of our prayer vigil at Wal-Mart on Black Friday. I guess those nuns just scared the bejezus out of Wal-Mart!

Every year St. Ambrose University awards the Pacem in Terris award. Last year's recipient was Kim Bobo, from International Worker Justice. We met her, and I've got a copy of a book she wrote, autographed by her. Wage theft is a big issue to them. So, I've been on a Black Friday prayer vigil at a Wal-Mart. I've met a founder of International Worker Justice, and sent them a check. IWJ is starting an office in Iowa City, and may be doing some work in the QCA. We'll see.

Did you know Iowa is a "right-to-work" state? (Translation: right to work underpaid.)

'Nuff for tonight. Thanks for hanging out!

Tired.

Our fourth grandkid - third granddaughter - Livvy tuned 11 today. We are so very proud of her. Love you, Livvy!

I read the papers daily. I don't often read a lot of it in depth. I skim, and if an article catches my attention, I may spend more time on it. Today was one of those rare days when nothing caught my attention.

Sleep well, all. I'll try to do likewise.

Thanks for coming by!

My week - Saturday

Saturday is a day of semi-rest. I'm not very active physically. This morning I drove daughter 3 to her boyfriend's house, dropping her off about 6:40. After I came home I surfed the web, listened to music, watched TV, in no particular order. Whatever I felt like doing at any given time.

I start to think through the Sunday school lesson for Sunday on Friday night. This week we'll be talking about the Holy Spirit, the beginning of the Church on Pentecost, apostles, and martyrs. The word "apostle" is often taken to refer to one of the twelve orginals, but it was a Greek word long before there was a church or a Twelve. "Apostle" simply means "one sent on a mission." When President Obama sent Hillary Clinton on an overseas mission, she was an apostle for him. The word "epistle" means "letter", so if Ms. Clinton sent a foreign dignitary a letter rather than making the trip, it was an epistle from an apostle. If that person sent a letter in reply, it was an epistle from that apostle. It had no connection with a church at all. In the Nicene Creed that the Roman Catholics and most Protestants (but not the Eastern Orthodox) subscribe to, we refer to "one holy catholic and apostolic church" (Roman Catholics capitalize the "Catholic".) The phrase means "one holy universal church with a mission."

We'll talk about martyrs. The martyrs we'll be focusing on will be associated with the violence in El Salvador in the early 1980s: Archbishop Oscar Romero, assassinated in March, 1980, and four American church women, three of them nuns, who were beaten, raped and murdered by five Salvadoran soldiers in December of that same year. We talked a while ago about Pedro Calungsod, a Filipino 18-year-old martyred in Guam a few centuries ago. The question: what is it that would motivate someone to surrender their very lives for something, as these people did?

On Friday night I work through some preliminary thoughts. During the early part of Saturday I fill out the subject matter. Later Saturday I start to consider the methodology. I have a catechists' guide (why say "teacher" when you can say "Catechist"?) and sometimes I adhere pretty closely, and sometimes not at all. Tomorrow will be a bit of a hybrid.

It's 10:42 now, and this is about the time I'm usually wrapping up, but after the 5 PM Mass Cindy and I and a couple of family members went out to a movie so things are a bit delayed. Cindy and I would notice if the plot was believable and well-developed, if the acting performances were good, if the screenplay was well-written. The family members we had with us are of such an age that they only notice if the actors are hot.

So, back to finishing up the prep. If a teacher shows up for a class unprepared, trust me, junior high kids will pick up on that quicklike and in a hurry.

Thanks for hanging out!

What I do all week. . .

I am such a creature of habit. I could tell you what I'll be doing all week in October. It will be pretty much the same thing I'm doing all week now.

SUNDAY: Mass at 9 AM, if I didn't go to the 5 PM on Saturday. I have one or another liturgical role at the 5:00 Mass seven months of the year, so most weekends it's the 5:00 Mass. Then I teach a Sunday school class, mostly junior-high age; class starts at 10:00 or whenever time everyone gets there, until 11:10, or whenever we're done.

I'm not terribly rule-bound. A denomination that I used to belong to was all about rules. Rules written. Rules unwritten. Rules made by anyone who confused his/her own opinion for rules. I think that one of the reasons I connect well with junior high kids is that I'm not a legalistic sort. Thus, no assigned seating. Sit wherever there's room and wherever your mood prompts you to sit. And I refuse to be the Cell Phone Gestapo. Just shut them off and don't make me compete with them. My lessons have not been about rules nearly as much as they've been about relationships. If you get through a year with me without knowing a lot more about rules and customs and suchlike, I'm OK with that. There's a time for that. But if you get through a year with me and are no closer to establishing your relationship with Jesus than you were at the start, then you have not failed. I have.

We're not afraid of experimentation in methods. So, the class session before a Christmas pageant was all music, and stories. We're experimenting with adding music and some closed-book-open-discussion time. I'm not sure that's working out so great.

I think that these kids and I connect well with each other. There's the rules-unbound thing (and, no, these youngsters have not abused that). But most people who know me well know that I've got a lot of junior high kid left in me. Both the good and the bad. Odd, because I remember the junior high years as being two of the toughest years of my life. I don't get it. But these young people and our class are one of the highlights of my week.

Then the rest of Sunday I think about no meetings, no organizations. I sit in a chair or lay on the couch looking for all the world like I'm stoned. "Rick - you in there?" "Huh?" If my boss ever saw that she'd send me for a random drug test the next day. (Hint: I'd pass.)

Long enough for one day. Thanks for hanging out.

Trafficking Tres

A young lady in a village in Nicaragua, or maybe Haiti, or Mexico, sees a notice on a billboard. A job! She hasn't had a lot of school, and job opportunities in her part of the world are rare indeed. And - could it be - "It's in the U.S.! El Norte!" She gets on a plane with visions of making enough to live on, having something left to send home, maybe go to school, get educated. . .

She arrives at her destination, gets off the plane, and is met by her charming host/employer and is driven to the same closet that the girl from our last installment found herself in. Her getting any money to live on is up to the mercy of her captor (they usually have none). School? Well, in a manner of speaking. She's now in The Life.

Why, you ask, don't they just walk away from all the garbage? For those trafficked within their home country, there's the threat of harm to them or to their families. Since among the first things the slavers do is take away any form of I.D., it can be devilishly hard to even prove who you are. Sometimes you even lose track of who you are. If you are taken into slavery by an organization you will almost certainly not be plying the trade in your hometown. The organization (more properly, The Organization) has a kind of circuit that they use. A girl works in Atlanta for about two weeks, then gets moved to - L.A.? Omaha? - before anyone makes a real connection, not a sexual connection, but a real, human connection. A connection that connects with heart and mind and spirit, not body. Slavers want none of that. Besides, one of the holds that the slaver has on the girl is, "So if you leave, where would you go? You don't know anybody here."

About the use of terms like "slavers", "slavery", a short and simple defense. If you are not free to leave without fear of harm, and if you are not paid for what you do, is that not slavery? Is there a better term for it? The myth has grown that, if a girl makes some money, she has a split with the pimp. No, she doesn't. She very probably gets to keep none of it.

It's in the field of slaves being brought from overseas that the domestic servitude and the sex slaves bear some resemblance. Often - almost always - when people are trafficked for domestic service, sexual favors for the employer is part of the package. Gee, when I answered that ad, no one told me. .

And, if you're sold into sex slavery from overseas, not only do you not know anyone, not only do you not know where to go, you don't even speak the language. The saddest thing of all is, almost anywhere in the U.S., help is only a phone call away, maybe even right next door. Yes, for Spanish speakers. If they only knew. . .

We need to discuss solutions. It might help to think in terms of not going after the prostitute without going after the pimp (it probably wasn't her idea); in terms of more uniformity of state laws, and stronger federal laws. More training for law enforcement. More caring, involved groups like the one St. Alban's in Davenport has working. TVPRA (Google it, then contact your Congresssional representatives. That's where we take up the next time we're on the topic.

Thanks for hanging out.

Tough stuff 2 - trafficking

I first took an interest in human trafficking as a byproduct of work for immigrant justice. I saw the intersection of human trafficking and immigration issues as being a very wide and busy intersection. For labor trafficking and domestic worker trafficking every bit of this is true. For sex trafficking there is truth in the thought, but not as much as I had thought. Most of those who are trafficked for sex work are American born and bred.

A girl goes to her high school's basketball game. There are a bunch of adults there, but the crowd is mostly other high school kids. This girl has had issues at home. She feels isolated, alone, and she looks to be all of that. There is someone in that group of adults who recognizes that look and looks to exploit.

What does that person look like? Well, I'm sixty, and a grandpa. He might look just like me. Maybe she looks like a typical high school kid. One of the recruiting tricks of traffickers is to send another trafficking victim - one of his harem - out to recruit other girls, and this target is looking for a friend. Or the organization behind the trafficking sneds a guy to recruit a girl. If he's a hot enough guy, and this target is confused enough, it's easy to entice her outside, and the last thing she feels is a blow to the back of her head. Or they buy her a drink, and the last thing she remembers. . .

She wakes up locked in a closet in Atlanta or Oklahoma City or somewhere else that's not home. And the initiation into The Life begins.

One of the most frightening things I've seen on Facebook was a granddaughter who is now a teenager saying to her mom, "I know how to take care of myself, and I know what to look for." My granddaughter, you who make me so enormously proud and overjoyed, no, you don't know what to look for. I don't know what to look for. She does, however, do some very smart things to protect herself.

Law enforcement officials say that, once a kid is gone 24 hours, they're probably taken. Kinda presents a problem if the law enforcement agency doesn't take a missing persons report until someone's been gone 24 hours.

I have told the Sunday School class I teach - mostly junior high age, prime meat for these scumbags - that there is danger out there, and that there is safety in numbers. It doesn't mean that you have to take mommy and daddy with you everywhere forever. It does mean that when you go somewhere - anywhere - go with friends.

About the smart things that my granddaughter does: she takes her time in forming relationships, and she forms relationships and friendships only with people with whom she has something in common. She has a stronger family than do most of the kids that get caught in the trafficking trap. And when she goes anywhere it's with family or friends.

Smart girl, that.

The moral of tonight's story? Please discuss.

And thanks for hanging out, my friends.

Prayers

I didn't blog last night. I plead a lack of power. We had an outage (30 mph winds + ice and snow will do that), and while I do blog on a laptop, and we have an adequate supply of candles, the lack of power played havoc with the modem and the router. So I did what I should do every night if I had the common sense that God gave a turnip. I went to bed early.

But, no excuse tonight.

A couple of my favorite prayers:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

And where there is sadness, joy.

 

Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

To be understood, as to understand,

To be loved, as to love.

 

For it is in giving that we receive;

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

In a copy of that prayer, the Peace Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, there was a typo that I hadn't noticed before I printed it, so instead of "Divine Master", it was "Diving Master." God in flippers and snorkel, I guess. Air tank. . .

It's a prayer that reminds me of what I think God expects of me. It's the answer to the WWJD question. And, just now, I need the reminder.

John Michael Talbot does a musical version of this that is just awesome.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

I'm Rick, and I'm alcoholic. This is a prayer that is often said at AA meetings. Anyone could say it, I guess, and I say it in lots of settings away from AA meetings. Still, it has a special meaning for us.

That's all for tonight. I'm sick and tired. (And sick and tired of being sick and tired. Niters, and thanks for hanging out.

Trafficking - for some, Tough Stuff 1

At a truck stop, a trucker parked his truck. He was only there about five minutes when a knock came on the door. "Hey, mister, want a date for tonight?" The trucker, who was not in the habit of accepting such offers, was about to give his customary "No" when he took a closer look at her face.

"How old are you?" She said, "18." (They all are 18. Only they're not.) His thought was she's no older than 14. He asked, "Why are you doing this?" Her reply: "You see that guy in that Cadillac back there? He's why I have to do this."

In most locations she'd be charged as a criminal. Law enforcement may or may not take any interest in him.

How does a girl (or boy - boys are not exempt; some customers prefer boys) get caught up in this? Lots of ways. I'll present one of them today, and others later. There's a moral to the story for each one, but that's something you should work out. I'd be interested to know your responses and thoughts.

Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. He finds her attractive; she finds him attractive. They see each other with increasing frequency, and each encounter is more intimate than the last. He pressures her to take that last step - "If you love me, you'll do it - and, finally, she takes the leap. After all, he's convinced her that she's the only love of his life, that he'll respect her in the morning, yada. . .So sexual intercourse is surely OK, and they have sex.

She thinks they've made love.

He thinks "I can sell this on the street."

So they experiment with other sexual activities, and at some point he introduces her to a couple of his friends. He tells her that she needs to do the same thing for his friends. At this point surely the lights have gone on for her, but the point of no return has been reached. If she refuses, she's beaten - gang-raped - introduced to "The Life."

"Baby, we need some money. Go out and make us a few hundred." Maybe she's not told how to make it. She doesn't need to be told. Say you don't like the anal variety? Honey, a few hundred tonight, and it's whatever the customer wants. It's not about what you like or don't like. If she makes the few hundred, she gets a split, right? Well, no. Not usually. Pimp gets it all.

Moral of the story?

Today I have been sick sick sick - sore throat, cough, headache, yada yada. Tonight I am at what's left of the party for Logan, our now-9-year-old grandson. We're in the Blackhawk. Just down the street is the Adler Theater, where there is a big show choir competition going on. Half the state of Iowa is keeping us company. Fortunately, we have three adjoining rooms, and everyone is in the room two rooms away - leaving me alone.

'Nuff about me.

At work we get the online version of the Business Record Daily. For some reason, some stuff in yesterday's edition just struck me as odd. This is what passes for business news in Iowa.

SEC creates software to better detect accounting fraud. Yeah, good luck with that. Wanna bet the bad guys already have the details and are already months ahead of it?

China's bachelors driving economic activity. Wow, that must be a lot of bachelors. But - how are they driving economic activity? Are all those single guys really more responsible for economic activity than married folks with families? I can't imagine - well, I guess I could - WHAT ARE ALL THOSE SINGLE GUYS SPENDING ALL THAT MONEY ON? Maybe they don't want to be bachelors anymore?

Maybe we're looking at the Law of Unintended Consequences. If China is adhering to a one-child policy, and if they have such a preference for sons that they abort or abandon baby girls, should they be surprised that, about now there would be a shortage of wives for all those Chinese bachelors?

Etiquette training for YPs. First point of etiquette - don't use a cryptic abbreviation in a headline. Etiquette training for the Yellow Pages? Oh - for Young Professionals. I know a few young professionals. They all need etiquette training, but none of them would pay the slightest attention to it.

And in the not-even-remotely humorous-in-fact-pretty-sick department: Child in high-speed chase was found on vehicle floor. What? What? The "Dad" led police on a chase that topped 110 mph. It ended when the fellow slammed his car into a police cruiser. The officer wasn't hurt; he'd left the cruiser. They found the driver, dead behind the wheel. And I don't think it would have occurred to anyone that this clown would lead police on a 110-mph joyride with his kid in the car. When officers found the dead driver they heard the child crying. The youngster was sent to a children's hospital, and the last I heard, was OK. The driver was the father, but the kid's mom reported him missing in Dec,., 2012. The father's death does, I think, merit a nomination for a Darwin Award. RIP idiot. Asshole.

Thanks for hanging out.

This was a somber night. We attended a visitation. We had never met Phil - Major Dvorak - but we know his wife well. Nora and I and Cindy serve together on the immigration task force of Quad City Interfaith. Nora is the embodiment of simple human decency - the meaning of Agape, the Greek word that doesn't really translate, but refers to the love that seeks the good, the welfare, the perfection of someone else. "Greater Agape has no one than this, than to give up one's own life for a friend." 1 Cor. 13 is often used at marriages, but that's a misuse of the Scripture. 1 Cor. 13 is about Agape, not Eros.

Phil was dressed in his Army dress uniform, and a plaque full of medals was posted nearby. This was about paying respects to a good man, and glorifying God for a life lived well.

As it was for Sam, and for so many others, too many for me to name.

Thank you all, and may God be praised for your having passed our way.

At the Ash Wednesday services, Catholics (and many other Christians) receive ashes on their foreheads. While the ashes are being placed, we are reminded: "You are dust, and to dust you will return."

So note to self: make the most of this life while you have it. And don't make more of yourself than you are. Dust. And to dust you will return. Sooner or later.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan told a story of an Ash Wednesday while he was ambassador to India. Late in the afternoon of that Ash Wednesday, he remembered that it was Ash Wednesday, and the realization came to him: "I haven't received ashes yet!" So he called a parish, got a priest who agreed to impose ashes, had the chauffeur called, the car fired up, the flags of the country and the embassy streaming - all presenting a really impressive-looking sight. He got out of the car, entered the church with the pomp and escort you'd expect for an ambassador, and the priest imposed the ashes, with the reminder: "You are dust, and to dust you will return." Reminder.

There was a Buddhist monk who had a parrot trained to ask, "Is today the day?" Thus the constant reminder: it just might be.

So live like it just might be.

Thanks for hanging out.

Ash Wednesday today. This marks the start of Lent for Catholics and, for that matter, most Christians. It's been a tradition among many for a long time to give up something for Lent.

What to give up - what to give up?

There was a story in the Chicago Tribune some years ago. It was a day in the life of Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago. The man's morning was paperwork and paperwork and more paperwork. His afternoon and evening were meeting after meeting after meeting, with more paperwork interspersed. Throw in the celebration of a Mass or two (it was a weekday,but we Catholics don't need a weekend to celebrate Mass. Besides, when does the Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago celebrate Mass? Any old time he feels like it.) Breakfast was in the residence, and was a working meal. Lunch was on the go, in the car. It was a peanut butter sandwich and an apple. The day was during Lent, and the paper pointed out that the peanut butter sandwich had no jelly. I'm guessing that Cardinal George had given up the J in his PB&J for Lent?

The story is told of a priest who gave up cream and sugar in his coffee one Lent. He found out that he preferred his coffee black. I wonder if, next year at Lent, he started putting cream and sugar back in?

I have always thought that an alternative to giving something up for Lent was to add a good habit. I have used the time of Lent for memorizing passages of Scripture. One year it was Psalm 51 (Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love. . .Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. . .Put a new and right spirit within me"). Another year it was the creation account in John 1 ("In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with god, and the Word was God". The Greek word translated as "The Word" is ho Logos, and in Greek philosophy that's a loaded word. The writer of John was using language to say something very specific about who Jesus was, and the English doesn't quite capture it.) Another year it was a passage from Philippians 2 that means a lot to me ("Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. . .") The memorization didn't take all of Lent, but I found myself savoring that passage, almost tasting it, swirling it around in my mouth like great food or a fine wine. Terrific experience.

Lent is, in the final analysis, a season for reflection, for repentance. It's similar to the Days of Awe between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur for Jews, or Ramadan for Muslims. So, I won't wish "Happy Lent"; that would be awkward at best. I wish you a richly blessed time, with wonderful reflection, and something that you will carry with you even after Lent.

Thanks for hanging out!

Early post today. Short post today.

Headline in the Quad City Times front page:

Catholics face uncertainty

Attention Times: Who writes these headlines for you? Catholics face uncertainty? Seriously?

The Church has been around for a millenium or so. Other Popes have abdicated. There are very few things that we have never confronted before. But now we're uncertain?

Not hardly. Whatever else goes on, we will be just fine. And one thing never ever changes:

 

Jesus Christ is Lord.

But that's not headline stuff, is it> Or is it?

So, the Pope is retiring.

When John Paul II died in 2005, I was shaken. I became a Catholic during his papacy. I'm not a cradle Catholic; I joined in September, 1992.(This sort of thing usually happens at the Easter vigil, but the approach of my date with open heart surgery sped that process up.) When John Paul died, he'd been the only Pope I'd known during my life as a Catholic. In my own personal pantheon of faith heroes, he's a near-hero. The man stared down the mighty Soviet empire with not so much as a bullet at his disposal, and that's certainly to be respected, and he consistently stood for the dignity and value of the individual. But, still, a near-hero. He was a little autocratic for my taste.

During his last few years he'd been ill and he'd suffered terribly. He wouldn't retire, though. He saw suffering as something we offer to God. On an individual level I'm OK with that; the God I believe in can redeem anything. Still, I wonder: did it occur to him or to those around him that, if you're suffering to the extent that he was, does the Church not suffer from a lack of leadership at the top? But, then, the Roman Catholic Church has really never considered what to do in the event of the abdication of the Pope. The last time it happened was in 1415. We do think in centuries; we just recently got around to apologizing for Galileo.

We're not the only church that has confronted the issue of what to do about an incapacitated person at the top. Another denomination that I used to belong to had an individual at the head of the church, and who occupied that spot for about nine years. For probably three or four of those years I'm not at all sure that he even knew he was the head of that church; health issues and age had caught up to him. That church, like mine, hasn't really considered the possibility that it may be necessary for the head to step down. That church, like mine, has no institutional mechanism for telling the one in charge that he should step down.

Benedict XVI made that decision on his own. I'm glad he had the courage to do that. I do have a hunch he's not going to ride off into the sunset. He has been a top-notch intellectual, and he has always loved writing.

Who will succeed? There's little point in speculating. A saying in Rome: "He who comes here as Pope goes home as a Cardinal." Just a couple of notes. One, the Italian Curia has regarded the last 35 years, in which the Pope was not Italian, as a kind of aberration. They'd love to see another Italian Pope. However, the Church is growing by leaps and bounds in Africa, and an African Pope is conceivable. But, if I was betting on a dark horse, I'd point out that there are about a billion Catholics worldwide. About half of that total in in Latin America. We have, indeed, become a Latin American church. I'd bet on one of the Cardinals from Latin America.

Does a Cardinal from the U.S. have a shot? Maybe Dolan, from New York, but that's an outside possibility.

Thanks for hanging out!

I missed my calling.

I'm wrapping up Sunday, and thinking back on that class I teach. The next meeting I need to start thinking about is the board meeting for Quad City Interfaith, on Tuesday night, and I won't think about that until Monday night. I so enjoy teaching these kids, and, so far, they continue to allow me to teach them.

The aspect that I have enjoyed most at each of my roles at work has been the teaching component. Some folks for whom I was the Lead Customer Service Associate said the same thing to me that I opened this post with: "Rick, you really missed your calling." Their thought was that my proper place should have been teaching at the college level, either church history or Biblical studies at some small Catholic college somewhere in the Midwest. Hello, St. John's in Collegeville?

Ah, but the time for my thinking about that has come and gone, as right as the thought may have been.

The book in the Bible that I'm reading now is Proverbs. Proverbs' genre is wisdom literature. We usually think of the wisdom books as Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes. However, wisdom is a theme that runs through much of the Old Testament. The story of Joseph in Genesis is quintessentially wisdom.

Wisdom is frequently personified. Wisdom is not portrayed as being God, but it is what God uses to order the creation. And, the personification of wisdom ("kochma" in Hebrew) is almost excluysively feminine. Something to chew on for those who would maintain that the only available imagery for God is masculine. (This gets even more interesting when the New Testament vision of the Holy Spirit is considered. The Hebrew word for Spirit - ruach - also means wind or breath. The same is true of the Greek word: pneuma. Both ruach and pneuma are feminine nouns.)

The wisdom literature of the Old Testament shows indications of coming from two separate, non-Hebrew antecedents. Proverbs and the Joseph cycle of stories are very Egyptian in theme. Job and Eccesiastes are very Mesopotamian. Compare the themes and moods of the literature, and the differences between the Egyptian and the Mesopotamian come into clear relief. The differences reflect differences that also appear in the extrabiblical literature of the cultures.

So the discussion question: What do you see as the differences between the Egyptian-themed and the Mesopotamian-themed Biblical literature? (No, I don't pose that sort of questions to a bunch of junior high and high school kids.)

Class dismissed.

It's still Saturday as I start this. . .

Busy day today. We went to a planning meeting for the board of Quad City Interfaith. There was a lot of good material for us to start our process with. One of the things we spent some time on was finding a focus, looking at areas of endeavor that are our core competencies - things that we do better than other organizations do, that we have a passion for. Really, if you don't know what you do best, and if you don't know where your interest lies, you move forward in a blind, stumbling manner, if at all. You may not even know where "forward" is.

We discussed the nature of power, and why it's not a dirty word. The simple fact of life: if you have no power, you have no influence. When we have a collective action, as we did at the Irish Memorial for immigrant justice; or, if we start a letter-writing campaign or meet face-to-face with politicians, we go with power - they know that we will have access to the ballot box. They know that we talk with a lot of other people who go to the ballot box. That's POWER. No power, no influence. Try to get a politician's attention if he knows you can't vote in his elections.

The power we seek must be from the grass roots level.

We will be focusing on 1-on-1 conversations. I will work on recruiting someone to St. Mary's Core Group (yes, I have someone in mind.)

Right now - preparing for my class in Christian Ed. That usually means up late Saturday night, sometimes into the wee hours Sunday - then up early Sunday for more. I come across to the class as being casual - a bit offhand. Trust me, I'm not. (CSAs from MidAmerican that worked with me - see a theme here?)

And then, from Sunday afternoon until I get up for work Monday morning I lay on the couch, semi-comatose, looking for all the world like I'm stoned. (I'm not - I stopped doing that stuff years ago. But it looks like it.) If I were told that I had to give up all of my activities but one, I want to teach those kids. I want to see them learn and grow.

So, back to it. Thanks for keeping me company, thanks for hanging out!

Late. Tired. I must be getting old. It's 9:00 on a Friday night, and I just want to go to bed. I remember a time when, at 9:00 on a Friday night I was just figuring out what to wear for the rest of Friday night - and well into Saturday morning.

Tomorrow - an executive planning session for Quad City Interfaith. Early Saturday. We'll be at it from 8 AM to 2 PM, and maybe longer. Clock discipline - and respect for our time - is not - ah, never mind. Not here or now.

See ya tomorrow!

We're going to a school concert tonight. I thought we were done with those, but then we had grandkids and, in some ways, the cycle has started all over again. Only better.

Meri is our third grandkid, our second granddaughter. She is a mild mannered girl, easy to get along with (her younger brother would dispute that. Once I asked him how to spell "annoying." He answered: "M-E-R-I." Brothers. . .) Meri's mildness has meant that she hasn't been great at competitive sports. When she was younger she played soccer. One of the kids on the other team took the ball as Meri was moving down the field. Meri looked at her mom and said, "Mom, he took the ball from me!" Mom answered, "He's SUPPOSED to take the ball! And you're supposed to go get it back!" Meri just doesn't have that sort of drive. (For some of her cousins that would be no problem at all. We do have some shinkickers in our family - some kids that wouldn't go after the ball, but pity the poor kid who took it!)

Meri could be a great teacher one day - patient, loves younger kids, and they relate well to her.

She is a tall girl. She's about 5'4", but she's only eleven. She's up to my nose now. Blond, but darkening to brunette. Beautiful, and a little conceited. Once, when she was getting ready for picture day at school, she looked into a mirror and said, "I'm beautiful." Not in a surprised way - sort of matter-of-fact about it.

She loves participating in these concerts - our young alto. Her grades have taken a quantum leap for this midterm. We couldn't be happier or prouder. So the proud grandparents will be there, watching the tallest girl up there and not knowing that anyone else even exists.

Ah, grandparenthood!

Pain - butt - II

Today Quad City Interfaith held a prayer vigil. We met at the Irish Memorial, outside the Davenport Ground Transportation Center. We had maybe 40 people there, more than I expected.

At the Irish Memorial there is a sculpture representing the Irish immigrant experience. The parallels between the Irish experience and the Mexican experience are stunning. The Irish that came ashore during the Civil War were often greeted by someone telling them, "Go see that nice Army recruiter over there. Don't worry about the missus, she and the kiddos will be cared for." So they went and fought a war that wasn't theirs, in the hope that this would help them enter into American society. In some versions of the Dream Act, one way of qualifying for permanent legal residency involves military service. The more things change. . .

Some time ago I saw that there was a newspaper article in one of the local papers. It complained about all these foreigners that really should learn to speak English. Sound familiar? Only, this wasn't about the Mexican immigrants. It was about 120 years ago, and about the Germans. Those of us of German ancestry tend to forget, this was our experience, too.

Our first speaker spoke of her experience as an immigrant. She was powerful and moving. She was brought to the U.S. when she was three. She couldn't get a driver's license at the same time as other kids. She can't get a Social Security number, and functioning without that is nearly impossible. But she has managed. Some of the legal obstacles for her are moving. She's now 21, and since she came here when she was three, she's never known any life but that of an American. But this American has to live in the shadows.

We prayed. All three of the local TV stations has news crews there. I think the Quad City Times had someone there. I had a speaking part, jointly with a good friend, Nora Dvorak. Afterward, one of the TV stations, WHBF (TV 4) interviewed me, and a bit of that interview aired on the 6:00 news. I'm glad they chose the part they did; our purpose, since there is movement on the political scene, was to make sure our elected representatives know that we're watching. And we'll do more things to raise awareness and attention.

I can look at my students and tell them that the system isn't perfect, and probably won't be in my lifetime. But we can do something, and what we can do, we will do. Life will never be perfectly fair, completely just. But we can make your world, my marvelous young folks, a little more fair, a little more just. And may God bless your dreams and your journey.

I want these kids to have a chance at any career they choose. I want them to be able to go to college. And when they graduate, I hope they think to send me an invitation to their ceremony. I will be in the audience, cheering their name like a stone fool. And I will hold up a big sign:

I TOLD YOU SO!!!

Become a regular pain-in-the-butt stinker, I have!

I mentioned an interest of mine earlier - human trafficking. I would love to be able to eradicate this plague altogether - exactly how much slavery is acceptable? - and it's taken me many years to make my peace with my own limitations. There's much evil in the world. I can't erase all of it, no matter how much I wish I could. But in my little corner - well, I can advise and inform and argue and scream blue bloody murder. When it comes to trafficking, I will carry on like a man possessed.

Another interest: immigrant justice. I suppose there's much to celebrate in that some Republicans are moving somewhat on the issue. Would that their movement was because they suddenly repented of their evil ways. Alas, I think it's because they can read election returns and demographic trends as well as anyone. You got spanked by 40 percent in the Latino vote! Guess what the fastest-growing demographic in the country is? Wins in statewide elections in California for Republicans have become rare critters. Are you trying to do likewise in Arizona? Texas? To keep talking as you did in the last election is party suicide.

As Bobby Jindal said, "We have to quit being the Party of the Stupid."

How about doing the right thing just because it's the right thing?

I am a member of St. Mary's Parish in Davenport. We have two English Masses on the weekends. They're not deserted, but you can show up late and find a seat. We have one Spanish Mass, and it's packed to the rafters. Our parish is about 75% Latino. I teach a Christian Ed class (that's Sunday School to some of you.) My kids are mostly junior high kids; it's an age group I seem to connect well with. My wife would probably say that this is because I have more than a little junior high kid still in me.

A while ago we had someone work with our youth group. They discussed what their greatest fear was. The greatest fear? That, one day, they would come home from school and their mom and/or dad would not be there and would not be coming back because they'd been deported. I had my fears when I was a kid, but I never ever thought that someone would be taking my parents - the rock of my life - away.

I don't know how I would have lived with that fear.

In light of that I look at that Christian Ed class. 75% of my parish is Latino. Every single one of my students is Mexican-American. I look the faces of these great, smart, beautiful and wonderful kids, and I wonder: Do you live with this fear? (Don't tell me if you do! If ICE ever investigates, I want to be perfectly useless to them. We already had a dad from here deported.) Does this haunt you? What can I - one person in one corner - do to make your life better? What can I do so that you can dream as big as you want to dream, and without fear?

Tomorrow Quad City Interfaith will do - - something. More later about exactly what.

My primary reading now I

Shelley: Prometheus Unbound. Thoughts about it later.

Health. And - y'know - health.

Health is truly a precious thing. There was an old basketball coach who admiringly spoke of one of his particularly competitive players: "He treats his body like he has a spare."

I'll be 60 in July. It's past time that I quit treating my body like I have a spare. When I walk down the street I don't see any 200-year-old people, and I don't expect to be the first. I do see a lot of folks in their seventies and eighties, and I'd like to be one of them one day. I want to see my grandkids graduate from college, and since the youngest one of the grands is two, I have some living yet to do. (There's a hint in there, my grandchildren!)

I do have some health issues. My being diabetic is old news - diagnosed 1991, although, if I am a typical diabetic, I probably was diabetic for five or six years before diagnosis. I have an artificial heart valve - aortic valve, October 1992, so that's also old news. Alcoholism, but I last drank in 1985, so also old news. (I drink the wine at the Eucharist, but that's subject for much too long a discussion for here.)

The new stuff: October 6 I woke at about seven in the morning and almost immediately experienced terrible dizziness. Since I am, after all, a guy, I denied that anything was wrong, and went about my business. It lasted almost three days. I drove to St. Mary's on Sunday morning to teach the Christian Ed. class that I teach. I don't know if they could tell that anything was wrong, although I knew that the day before one of my symptoms was noticeably slurred speech.

What do men do when they're sick? They deny they're sick.

What do women do when they're sick? They go to the doctor.

This happened again exactly two months later, on December 6. This time my wife drove me to the Emergency Room before I could even start to say, "I'm fine - no big deal." Hospital staff saw the difficulty walking, the slurred speech, the dry heaves. I was in the hospital for the three days of the episode, and my heart, with that valve, had more pictures taken than a Victoria's Secret model.

Heart's OK. Valve's OK. I went back to my family practice doc. There are only two things that cause vertigo: ear and brain. We checked the easier and more common one first, so I was referred to an EENT doctor. Elements of my set of symptoms matched elements of inner ear problems, but the whole set of symptoms didn't match the whole set of symptoms of any common ear issue. So, off to the the MRI. I called the doctor's office for the result.

You may have noticed that some words, when spoken by a medical professional, stop the conversation? One of those words is "stroke." That's the word I heard in the phone conversation - the MRI found evidence of an "old stroke."

How old? How severe? (Obviously not too severe, since we all know the all-too-frequent consequence of an untreated severe stroke is.) Could that thing in October have been from a stroke?

The EENT asked me if I'd like referral to a neurologist. I hedged a bit, but I know what the answer will be. I'm almost 60, and I don't have a spare body. We have ten grandkids, and I want to see them graduate from college and find their ways to contribute, and grow into their faith.

Next doc visit Wednesday (EENT).

Recently my nephew completed a year of blogging every day. It wasn't easy a'tall a'tall. There were days when all he could do was to write a sentence. But, still, he did it. I'm reminded of Flannery O'Connor who would make a point to spend at least four hours a day with her writing pad. Sometimes inspiration came. Sometimes it didn't. But, just in case it did she'd be ready for it.

I'm going to try it, now. 1 year, blogging every day, starting today. Some days I'll have something to say. Some days, I'll have nothing at all to say, except "Today I have nothing at all to say." I did write in a blog before - Rickonthisnthat.blogspot.com - and I think you can still find it if you want. If I repeat myself, too bad. If I repeat myself, too bad.

Some interests of mine, that may come up now and then:

HUMAN TRAFFICKING. I have become increasingly aware. We have what has been a major center of the sex trafficking trade, right here in the Quad Cities. I'm not saying the name. It's a truck stop. On I-80. You know - an I-80 Truckstop. I have considered being part of a ministry that a church in the Quad Cities has supported, but I think it is not my calling. Praise God for St. Alban's Episcopal for doing this. I have worked in raising awareness, as much as I can in my situation. You think your town is exempt? Got a truck stop? Got any downtown massage parlors? Look at that girl approaching that truck in the lot. Looks like she's 14? She probably is. See that guy in the Cadillac 50 feet away from her, looking like he's watching her every move? He's probably the reason she's approaching that truck. See those injured knuckles on her hand? She probably didn't make quite enough money for him last night; slamming hands in doors is a favored punishment among many. Sex slavery is only one aspect of human trafficking. It is the most profitable. And we all know that sex sells newspapers.

There are others, but I do sometimes drift into TLDR territory, though (TLDR="Too long, didn't read.")

Thanks for hanging out!