SEE YOU IN A BIT

I am going on retreat for the weekend. Hope to get in a lot of quiet time, and prayer, and hear some good stuff from the Jesuits. They have great food, too. It is held at the White House Retreat Center in what used to be rural St. Louis County. Old white stone buildings give it the name, built on a wooded bluff above the Mississippi River.
Idyllic...
My fourth time there....Pray for me and I will return the favor.

Here I will leave something I wrote about 10 years ago.
Kinda wintery in tone.

REFLECTIONS
The trees and roads and hills were liberally dusted with the first fresh fall of the season. Here and there, a squirrel moved its way tentatively toward somewhere it instinctively knew meant food. Sound was at a minimum, except for the faint low hum of the wind. As the day ran on, everything took on a steely gray hue.

The man viewed this scene from the second story bedroom window. His breath steamed the panes briefly, as brief was the best his breathing could do these days. Light from the desk lamp caused a reflection of someone he once knew. Or thought he knew, at least. Who are you anyway, he wondered as he gazed at the face in the window.

And what of this face? Cheeks a bit sunken, a fringe of a mustache, gray and white specks on the chin. A strong chin it was, with a deep vertical dent in the center. A genetically defining dent, one shared by most of his descendants. The eyes, pale blue, were surrounded by folds of skin and rutted lines extending from the outer corners into the cheeks. As for hair, or lack of such, the steady retreat begun in his forties was now virtually at an end, leaving only whitish tufts above the ears. It seemed some of the fallen follicles had taken root on the ridges above the eyes, and even on and around the ears. With a wry grin, the man recalled telling his youngest now a lovely woman in her own right, how “going bald was okay”, because the hair wasn’t really gone, it just fell on his back and shoulders and grew there. He was just keeping it there for now. And it made him smile to remember that this story was good enough for her then.

Funny, too, how the face looking back was so like his fathers, and even his fathers’ fathers’. How much, he mused, did this repeat? Did his great grandfather look the same? Would one of his sons? How far back, how much forward? It was a warm feeling of rootedness that these thoughts brought, even in the viewing of a life in decline.

So. There he was. The same, yet not the same. Still, in that reflection was the curly headed boy who played at sports with abandon, had some moderate success in prep and college, and came of age in a time of his countrys’ vast confusion over a foreign war, and a moral decline to match the Romans. This boy-to-man had the blessed fortune to encounter a woman four years his junior, who was to provide the love and meaning to his life for over half a century, who would bear their six children and with him see them grow and struggle and fight and rejoice their way through the plus and minus of their own lives.

She was “My North, my South, my East and West, my working week and my Sunday rest”, as the Irish poet W. H. Auden put it. “I thought love would last forever. I was wrong.”

Well, it turns out Auden was wrong....the love lasted, but the earthen vessel that bore her tremendous spirit failed all to soon. It was almost understood between them that he would be the first to go. Not that either of them had any pre-knowledge...it was just a feeling. But it was in a time very like today that she took her leave. Mercifully short and remarkably almost painless, her demise was handled much the same way she went through life.....with great love and humor, and more thought of others than herself. In testimonial to her deep faith, it was remarked that all who had seen her smile now had a special emissary in the hereafter, to help pave their way. And if her earthly will and love had the same heavenly force, then her blessings would continue to reach out until we all met up again.

A rush of melting snow falling past the window roused the man from his remembrance. He seemed to spend more and more of his time there, in the past. It was known, and it was for the most part pleasant, and she was there. So he easily drifted back to her, and the smile. It was the first thing he saw, the feature most attracting. Through the years, it always humbled him, to know she was with him, and that he probably got more of those smiles than anyone else. It was a gift of God, that smile, and one she gave away freely and generously. Others envied it, he knew, although they never said. And it was to his great joy that their children possessed that gift, each and everyone. It would always set them apart as beautiful.

The face in the reflection also had a smile now. Oh, it wasn’t like hers, but it showed promise,. For, down below into the street spilled loads of descendants, the real reason he continued to hold on since she left. They would come, and eat, and drink, and yell, and laugh..... and cry. They would linger, and then be gone.

But their stay would always give him more fuel for the fire, until his burned down for good, and the ash fluttered up, and they were together again.

A PRO-LIFE HAIKU

FORTY-SIX MILLION
DEAD BABIES, NEVER A CHANCE
TO SHOW US THEIR GIFTS

(thanks to lee strong for correcting my math.....t)

TAG, I'M IT.....

Got this from angelmeg at Transcendental Musings. I don't normally do these, but this looked fun.
1. Before I go out the door, I make sure my zipper is up. (seriously....very important!)
2. I can't seem to catch up on my sleep. (can nap anytime...anywhere.)
3. The one surface that seems to get cluttered fast is my mind.
4. If I sleep past Tuesday, I feel like I've overslept, (although it makes for a short work week)
5. No matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to make money in my sleep.
6. I hope to have my income taxes done by somebody who can get me max. refund and min. jail time.
7. This year, I would like to make more time for golf, guitar and dates with the lovely bride......(though not necessarilly in that order.)

No tags, but have at it if so inclined.

DESTINYS CHILDREN

"I was going to be the first female President of the United States."
"I would have become a wife, and mother of four, with my oldest becoming a teacher."
"I would have died in a car accident on my 18th birthday, hit by a drunken driver."
"I was to have been that drunken driver."
"My destiny was to find the cure to cancer."
"I was to contract cancer in childhood, only to have it cured."
"My life would have been terrible, a victim of abuse, until I grew up and founded a home for abused and neglected children."
"I was to have been a child abuser, and later take my own life."
"I was going to be a carpenter."
"My life was going to be full of excitement, and love, and children of my own."

Just a few of the destinies of the more than 46,000,000 souls that never had a chance, to struggle, to laugh, to cry, to suffer, to find joy, to bring love to others.......to participate in this gift called life.

Roe v. Wade.....33 years and counting.

Ora pro nobis, and for all those who are victims.......the children, the women, the medical personnel.
May we see an end to this soon.

FIVE QUESTIONS

In the interest of furthering the collective knowledge of our nation, and to allow for responses to some of the burning questions of our day, I would like to take the opportunity to offer for your viewing pleasure.....
"FIVE QUESTIONS"

1. Is Osama bin Ladin really a Bush administration stooge, existing only to give force and power to the administration's plans for global dominance, snooping, and just generally annoying liberals?
2. Wilson Pickett's "Midnight Hour" finally came, at age 64. What was your favorite, all-time Motown song?
3. Will "The Simpsons" ever be cancelled....I mean EVER?
4. Is there anyone out there who can step up and be a voice for Black Americans?
5. Considering "Brokeback Mountain", do you wonder even a little bit about Tonto and the Lone Ranger?

Consider carefully, and respond.

GOD BLESS THE CHILD

We just returned from a baptism preparation session at the rectory. Jill and I do this on occasion. I never really know what to say before I talk at these times, but the little prayer we say before it always seems to help. So I just started talking......one of the couples had their gorgeous little 8 week old daughter there...she inspired me.
I mentioned that when John baptized Jesus, he then stepped back, and Jesus was the focus. In the same way, a parent needs to step back from their self, making the child the focus of their life. Maybe not very original or profound, but definitely true.
I also have been reading the Bible lately, and came across the part where Abraham blesses his sons. A priest once told me that a father's blessing is very powerful, coming from all the way back to the Old Bible guys. So I mentioned to the dad tonight that he can simply pass this on by making the sign of the cross on his daughters forehead.
Heck, I bless my kids cars when they take off for college or Chicago, or just a couple miles away. I sneak up on them and bless them on their shoulder without them even knowing it, or when they are sleeping.
Don't pass up the chance, mom and dad. Never know when you may get another one.

HAPPY B-DAY DR. K.

This being a holiday, and me being a teacher adds up to me being on the golf course today. Played the par 3, using only my Precept 7 wood, 7-iron, sand wedge and putter. The putter is "cock" as my brother-in-law Jackie would say, using a slang phrase from our youth that used to drive my mom up the wall. It is a mallet head, cherry wood, from the same company that makes baseball bats, Louisville. Jill gave it to me on my birthday four years ago. Actually, she asked me what I wanted and I said a putter that costs $100 bucks and she said I was nuts but I got it anyway.
Yeah, she spoils me.
Golf really is a strange game. You can look great, with the logo hats and the shoes and top equipment, but if your swing smells like butt cheese, fuggedaboutit. I decided to put to use the tips I got from a range jockey (my name for the guy who hangs out on the practice tees, giving out advice, whether you want it or not. Something I aspire to...), and use my new grip. And keep the head down, for Jimminy-Crickets sakes.
So here I was, the course almost empty, which is how I love it.... playing "Three-Ball Tommy " (a fancy name for cheating) where I play my first ball for the score on the hole, and take two more shots each time. Hey, Tiger and Phil do it all the time, and they get paid for it....it's called a "practice round.
Well, I did ok for the first time out. 7 over, with no birdies and one double booger.
No complaints here....I was out!
But maybe the best part was that, after the ninth, I wandered into the woods and found 15 balls. 15!! So I was up plus 11 on ball count for the day. Felt like a kid at a private Easter egg hunt.
Tomorrow their calling for snow.
Happy Birthday, Dr. King!