The Great Seal of WV was kinda like I said, but not really.
First of all, the date was June 20, 1863--I knew that back when we were doing The Golden Horseshoe test of WV history over 50 years ago!
I got the buckskin guy, but he's holding an ax, not a gun.
two hunting rifles are on the ground with a Phrygian Cap (google it) or 'cap of liberty' laying on them. There are growing vegetables and a hammer and anvil.
I got like 50% right. It's a lot more complicated than some garlands and a church steeple, that's what I saying and standing for.
MONTANI SEMPER LIBERI
(I probably misspelled some of that on my first try.)
But it is true, believe me, "Mountaineers are always free...."
They just are.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Garbage Day
Wednesday is garbage day, one of my favorite days of the week (which probably indicates I should 'get a life'....)
On Tuesday we put the garbage out in our full garbage cans and when we get up on Wednesday morning Cornwall looks like there was a shoot out at the OK Corral--empty garbage cans up and down the street, thrown on their sides, some in the road, strewn around like so many dead cowboys.
It's just amazing to me that we just put the garbage out every Tuesday (and the re-cycling stuff in our new garbage can sized re-cycle cans that say "Cheshire Recycles" on them and even has the town seal on the side--which isn't very interesting, just a couple of garlands and the top of the steeple of the Congregational Church...not, as seals go, very spectacular.)
Take, for example, the Great Seal of WV, one of which I have on the trunk of my car. Now there's a 'seal' to be proud of. It has two figures, one a coal miner with a pick over his shoulder and a cart of coal and a guy dressed in buckskin, like Davie Crockett, with a blunderbuss over his shoulder and some vegetables (rather than some dead animal) at his feet and their are eagle feathers and the date of WV's founding June 5, 1863 and the motto Montani semper liberi "Mountaineers are always free" for those who weren't paying attention in Latin class.
(Course, in the morning I'll go out and find I've made several factual mistakes about the Great Seal of West Virginia--but, hey, I'm trying to remember a lot more than a couple of garlands and a church steeple....)
Garbage day also reminds me of the three groups in our country that should be paid extremely well: garbage collectors, day care workers and aides in nursing homes. (I've most likely said this before in this space since I really think it about it a lot, but this time I've got numbers to share....)
Garbage Collectors should be paid at least as much as members of Congress. Nevermind that Garbage Collectors have an approval rating some 60 points higher than Congress, Congress makes messes (the fiscal cliff, the 'next' fiscal cliff, not renewing the Violence Against Women Act, not being sensible about the debt ceiling, I could go on and on...but I won't) while Garbage Collectors take away messes every Wednesday before I wake up.
Day Care Workers should be paid about as much as college basketball coaches. After all, Day Care workers are taking care of our most precious resource and college basketball coaches are hand-picking already accomplished athletes to play for them who are already alright since they are athletes and in college. Pre-school kids are waiting to be formed. So who deserves the big bucks--Geno and his ilk just trying to perfect almost finished products or those folks who every day work with toddlers and small children who need to learn what it means to be a good human being? Answer me that....
Nursing Home Aides should make as much as the President of AARP and the Deans of Medical Schools. Everyone (including the Congress I've already trashed) 'talks the talk' about caring for the elderly, but the President of AARP and Deans of Medical Schools don't actually 'walk the walk', the underpaid, overworked aides in nursing homes do. And their job--like garbage collectors and day care workers--involves cleaning up lots of messes.
People who clean up the messes of our children, our families, our parents and grandparents should be some of the best paid people in the society. I truly believe that. If everyone who had trash or small children or senile parents had to stop what they were doing day-to-day and handle those three issues, civilization as we know it would grind to a stop.
These are the people who handle the messes of our lives, shouldn't they make as much as a law firm partner or a bond trader? Or, for that matter, a pro basketball player. Nevermind Congress, we've already dealt with that.....
Hey, I'm a big labor union guy--can you imagine NHA-DCW-GC Union? They might have enough leverage over all of us to get those salaries....
On Tuesday we put the garbage out in our full garbage cans and when we get up on Wednesday morning Cornwall looks like there was a shoot out at the OK Corral--empty garbage cans up and down the street, thrown on their sides, some in the road, strewn around like so many dead cowboys.
It's just amazing to me that we just put the garbage out every Tuesday (and the re-cycling stuff in our new garbage can sized re-cycle cans that say "Cheshire Recycles" on them and even has the town seal on the side--which isn't very interesting, just a couple of garlands and the top of the steeple of the Congregational Church...not, as seals go, very spectacular.)
Take, for example, the Great Seal of WV, one of which I have on the trunk of my car. Now there's a 'seal' to be proud of. It has two figures, one a coal miner with a pick over his shoulder and a cart of coal and a guy dressed in buckskin, like Davie Crockett, with a blunderbuss over his shoulder and some vegetables (rather than some dead animal) at his feet and their are eagle feathers and the date of WV's founding June 5, 1863 and the motto Montani semper liberi "Mountaineers are always free" for those who weren't paying attention in Latin class.
(Course, in the morning I'll go out and find I've made several factual mistakes about the Great Seal of West Virginia--but, hey, I'm trying to remember a lot more than a couple of garlands and a church steeple....)
Garbage day also reminds me of the three groups in our country that should be paid extremely well: garbage collectors, day care workers and aides in nursing homes. (I've most likely said this before in this space since I really think it about it a lot, but this time I've got numbers to share....)
Garbage Collectors should be paid at least as much as members of Congress. Nevermind that Garbage Collectors have an approval rating some 60 points higher than Congress, Congress makes messes (the fiscal cliff, the 'next' fiscal cliff, not renewing the Violence Against Women Act, not being sensible about the debt ceiling, I could go on and on...but I won't) while Garbage Collectors take away messes every Wednesday before I wake up.
Day Care Workers should be paid about as much as college basketball coaches. After all, Day Care workers are taking care of our most precious resource and college basketball coaches are hand-picking already accomplished athletes to play for them who are already alright since they are athletes and in college. Pre-school kids are waiting to be formed. So who deserves the big bucks--Geno and his ilk just trying to perfect almost finished products or those folks who every day work with toddlers and small children who need to learn what it means to be a good human being? Answer me that....
Nursing Home Aides should make as much as the President of AARP and the Deans of Medical Schools. Everyone (including the Congress I've already trashed) 'talks the talk' about caring for the elderly, but the President of AARP and Deans of Medical Schools don't actually 'walk the walk', the underpaid, overworked aides in nursing homes do. And their job--like garbage collectors and day care workers--involves cleaning up lots of messes.
People who clean up the messes of our children, our families, our parents and grandparents should be some of the best paid people in the society. I truly believe that. If everyone who had trash or small children or senile parents had to stop what they were doing day-to-day and handle those three issues, civilization as we know it would grind to a stop.
These are the people who handle the messes of our lives, shouldn't they make as much as a law firm partner or a bond trader? Or, for that matter, a pro basketball player. Nevermind Congress, we've already dealt with that.....
Hey, I'm a big labor union guy--can you imagine NHA-DCW-GC Union? They might have enough leverage over all of us to get those salaries....
Thursday, December 27, 2012
The drive from JFK to Cheshire (via Hell)
A great Christmas, thanks for asking. Just Bern and Mimi and our friend John. Very quiet and small, which I like a lot (not to say noisy and large) isn't nice too....The granddaughters and their parents are on a cruise somewhere in the Caribbean with the rest of Cathy's family. Tim was in Florida with his parents and brothers, where Mimi went the day after Christmas, flying out of JFK.
We started about 12:30 p.m. to the airport, wondering about both traffic and weather. My mapquest told me to take the Wilbur Cross to Rt 8 and then down to 95. I hate 95 and was telling Mimi how much I preferred the parkways when she looked at her smart phone's GPS and told me her woman was telling her to stay on 15 all the way to the Whitestone Bridge. I was delighted. It's the first time in recent memory I was happy to have a smart phone anywhere in my vicinity. I find it annoying when you try to shake hands and people have to shift their smart phone to their left hand. Unlike cell phones, which usually reside in pockets or on belts, most people I know who have smart phones are always holding them, like an extension of their hands, another body part.
Anyway, we had a nice trip and I dropped her off at JFK around 2:40--pretty good time, then I started back....
The Van Wyke Expressway that we had so easily driven down only a few minutes before, now resembled a Yankee Stadium parking lot. It took me over an hour to get to the Whitestone and then, just as I thought I had smooth sailing, the Hutchinson Parkway came to a screeching standstill. I sat absolutely still for 10 minutes, gazing out at red parking lights into the horizon and beyond. I'd heard on the radio during that time that the Hutch was a nightmare all the way to the CT border. I looked around and realized I was three car lengths from the exit to the New York Thruway and 95. I sat another five minutes, trying to talk myself out of going against my instincts and risking 95. There is something less anxiety producing about creeping along two lanes of traffic with no trucks than creeping along 4 or 5 lanes of traffic surrounded by tractor trailers...I don't know why....
But I overcame my nature and got onto the shoulder and took the exit. For 10 minutes or so, I was patting my 'non-nature' on the back and telling it how smart it was as I whizzed along, all the way through the toll booth on the NYT. But then the White Plains exits came up....
I'll spare you all the tedium of the next 4 hours and 50 minutes. This will give you a hint, I never got above, 20 mph between stops until Bridgeport, which was ironic because in Bridgeport it really began to snow. Until it had been melting flakes and drizzle and, most of all, TRAFFIC.
Around 4:50 I got off at Old Greenwich and ran into a Mobile station to pee about a quart and a half. (I know people hate these urinary tract stories, but it was part of the Hell I was going through.}I then got into the car and was so beyond rationality I drank two bottles of water before I got to Milford where I pulled off into the snow covered truck parking lot and didn't even try to get into the Travel Center, I peed behind my car as a snow plow clearing the lot swerved to miss me. That would have been awkward to explain to Nationwide...
I didn't stop again until I was near both home and a package store where I got a bottle of wine I was going to need....
Snow covered roads from Bridgeport to Cheshire and stopping in my driveway at 8:17--nearly 5 1/2 hours after dropping off Mimi. Her flight was postponed once, she called Bern at 5. But she still might have gotten to Ft. Meyer's before I got to Cheshire. (Bern and I have several times driven to Baltimore or from Baltimore in under 5 1/2 hours...)
So, that's how I spent my day after Christmas. Hope yours was much, much better....
'
We started about 12:30 p.m. to the airport, wondering about both traffic and weather. My mapquest told me to take the Wilbur Cross to Rt 8 and then down to 95. I hate 95 and was telling Mimi how much I preferred the parkways when she looked at her smart phone's GPS and told me her woman was telling her to stay on 15 all the way to the Whitestone Bridge. I was delighted. It's the first time in recent memory I was happy to have a smart phone anywhere in my vicinity. I find it annoying when you try to shake hands and people have to shift their smart phone to their left hand. Unlike cell phones, which usually reside in pockets or on belts, most people I know who have smart phones are always holding them, like an extension of their hands, another body part.
Anyway, we had a nice trip and I dropped her off at JFK around 2:40--pretty good time, then I started back....
The Van Wyke Expressway that we had so easily driven down only a few minutes before, now resembled a Yankee Stadium parking lot. It took me over an hour to get to the Whitestone and then, just as I thought I had smooth sailing, the Hutchinson Parkway came to a screeching standstill. I sat absolutely still for 10 minutes, gazing out at red parking lights into the horizon and beyond. I'd heard on the radio during that time that the Hutch was a nightmare all the way to the CT border. I looked around and realized I was three car lengths from the exit to the New York Thruway and 95. I sat another five minutes, trying to talk myself out of going against my instincts and risking 95. There is something less anxiety producing about creeping along two lanes of traffic with no trucks than creeping along 4 or 5 lanes of traffic surrounded by tractor trailers...I don't know why....
But I overcame my nature and got onto the shoulder and took the exit. For 10 minutes or so, I was patting my 'non-nature' on the back and telling it how smart it was as I whizzed along, all the way through the toll booth on the NYT. But then the White Plains exits came up....
I'll spare you all the tedium of the next 4 hours and 50 minutes. This will give you a hint, I never got above, 20 mph between stops until Bridgeport, which was ironic because in Bridgeport it really began to snow. Until it had been melting flakes and drizzle and, most of all, TRAFFIC.
Around 4:50 I got off at Old Greenwich and ran into a Mobile station to pee about a quart and a half. (I know people hate these urinary tract stories, but it was part of the Hell I was going through.}I then got into the car and was so beyond rationality I drank two bottles of water before I got to Milford where I pulled off into the snow covered truck parking lot and didn't even try to get into the Travel Center, I peed behind my car as a snow plow clearing the lot swerved to miss me. That would have been awkward to explain to Nationwide...
I didn't stop again until I was near both home and a package store where I got a bottle of wine I was going to need....
Snow covered roads from Bridgeport to Cheshire and stopping in my driveway at 8:17--nearly 5 1/2 hours after dropping off Mimi. Her flight was postponed once, she called Bern at 5. But she still might have gotten to Ft. Meyer's before I got to Cheshire. (Bern and I have several times driven to Baltimore or from Baltimore in under 5 1/2 hours...)
So, that's how I spent my day after Christmas. Hope yours was much, much better....
'
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Almost Christmas
I did a wedding today at St. Andrew's in Northford--one of the churches in the Middlesex Cluster. Norman and Sharon married too young--19 and 20--and a son was born and they divorced. Forty years later--after very little contact--their granddaughter insisted they both come to the same event. They discovered each other again and were remarried today. Just his mother and father, son and daughter-in-law, a child from her second marriage and a whole host of grandchildren were there. It was truly special.
Then I picked up Mimi at the train station in New Haven. When Mimi arrives, what could be wrong? Josh and Cathy and the granddaughters are on a cruise with Cathy's parents and her two brothers and their families. Must be great--but I'm not sure I'd like Christmas on the high seas....
Then, the kitchen is finished!! The tile went in today and, unlike every other step, actually took a shorter time than estimated. We thought the tile guy would be back tomorrow...but no, he finished....
There are couple of minor things that won't take more than half-an-hour that the contractor, Jon, has to do the week after Christmas. But it looks great. The long ordeal is over....
I want to share with you something I think I share every Christmas: a quote from Michael Podesta, who is a graphic artist and calligrapher from Virginia. He's a good Episcopalian, whatever that means, and it is from a print that shows a slightly rolling desert, a half-moon and stars on a blue background (all very abstract). I know this is his quote since he always gives credit to words he uses in his calligraphy.
If, as Herod, we fill our lives with things, and again with things. If we consider ourselves so unimportant that we must fill every moment of our lives with action, when will we have time to make the long, slow journey across the desert as did the Magi? or sit and watch the stars as did the shepherds? or brook over the coming of the Child as did Mary? For each of us there is a desert to travel, a star to discover and a being within ourselves to bring to life.
Joyous, Joyous Christmas to you and all you love....
Then I picked up Mimi at the train station in New Haven. When Mimi arrives, what could be wrong? Josh and Cathy and the granddaughters are on a cruise with Cathy's parents and her two brothers and their families. Must be great--but I'm not sure I'd like Christmas on the high seas....
Then, the kitchen is finished!! The tile went in today and, unlike every other step, actually took a shorter time than estimated. We thought the tile guy would be back tomorrow...but no, he finished....
There are couple of minor things that won't take more than half-an-hour that the contractor, Jon, has to do the week after Christmas. But it looks great. The long ordeal is over....
I want to share with you something I think I share every Christmas: a quote from Michael Podesta, who is a graphic artist and calligrapher from Virginia. He's a good Episcopalian, whatever that means, and it is from a print that shows a slightly rolling desert, a half-moon and stars on a blue background (all very abstract). I know this is his quote since he always gives credit to words he uses in his calligraphy.
If, as Herod, we fill our lives with things, and again with things. If we consider ourselves so unimportant that we must fill every moment of our lives with action, when will we have time to make the long, slow journey across the desert as did the Magi? or sit and watch the stars as did the shepherds? or brook over the coming of the Child as did Mary? For each of us there is a desert to travel, a star to discover and a being within ourselves to bring to life.
Joyous, Joyous Christmas to you and all you love....
Friday, December 21, 2012
Comedy or Drama?
I heard someone say on radio today that there are two kinds of people: "people who think their lives are a comedy and those people who think life is a drama."
That's probably true, though for the past week, I've been caught in the drama of Newtown, I usually see life as a comedy, and I'm the fall-guy star.
All the slapstick of our new kitchen aside, today the Christmas tree fell down. It's been up for a week or so and no problem. Bern put the lights on a few days ago--we do still acknowledge Advent and don't have the tree up and decorated before the last few days before Christmas.
But I was putting on the ornaments today. I love that part, meeting old friends again after a year. We have so many ornaments--being married 42 years does that--that we normally have two trees: a white pine for me and a blue spruce for Bern. I decorate my tree only with things that fly--birds, angels, butterflies and silly things like the ornament that has an angel riding an elephant with wings. We have lots of weird things like that. And Bern's tree is usually earth bound things and all the ball shaped ornaments.
But since we have been so hassled by the endless steam of workers making our kitchen all new, we only have one tree this year. In the dining room beside one of the 7 foot tall windows in the front of our house. It happens to be the window our Puli likes to lay beside and look out at the street and all the horrible threats to our existence.
Today, Bela was laying there while I decorated the tree and Bern put stuff away in the kitchen that is done enough to put stuff away in. I went to the bathroom--there are other blogs about my bathroom habits that you can find it you want to, though why would you want to? Then Bern was yelling to me and I ran into the dining room, probably the biggest room in our house, and a room other people, if they lived here would make a living room with a big TV and all. We have no TVs downstairs. And our living room is a small room because we seldom 'live' in it. That's where the other tree would have been had things been different. The dining room is a place to eat, which is what we like more than most things, so we made the biggest room the dining room.
Too much explanation.
Anyway, I suspect the Puli, Bela by name, was where he usually was, under the tree looking out the window and he saw a monster in the street in front of our house and lept up barking, knocking the tree over. He weighs 50 pounds and is built like a Sherman Tank, so I have no doubt he could have done that.
Finally, after several options ended in madness, Bern drove a nail into the window frame and I handed her twine from both sides of the trunk of the tree and we tied it in place. That sucker won't fall down again and I put the large bag holding Bern's present so that Bela can't get back behind the tree again.
Every year for 7 years or so now, Bern creates some visual art for me for Christmas and I write her a poem or a short story. Below is the poem I wrote last year for her. She gave me an almost indescribable collage of everyone who is blood of my blood--our two children, their partners, our three grandchildren, our dog and cat--all pictures with folded paper coming out of what they call me. Dad, Jim, Baba, Grandpaw, Grampy, Man, 'mommy' for the cat and an incredible background of all those names over and over. I can't describe it, you'd have to see it. And I have seven years of stuff like that. I should have a show. I'll get an eighth one in a few days. Anyhow, here's last year's poem. This year I wrote a 26 page short story about a dog that gets lost and then...well, I can't give it away, but it is Christmas Miracle stuff.
People
can be lost in their own front yards during a true whiteout, when the
door is only 10 feet [3.04 meters] away, and they would have to feel
their way back.)
That's probably true, though for the past week, I've been caught in the drama of Newtown, I usually see life as a comedy, and I'm the fall-guy star.
All the slapstick of our new kitchen aside, today the Christmas tree fell down. It's been up for a week or so and no problem. Bern put the lights on a few days ago--we do still acknowledge Advent and don't have the tree up and decorated before the last few days before Christmas.
But I was putting on the ornaments today. I love that part, meeting old friends again after a year. We have so many ornaments--being married 42 years does that--that we normally have two trees: a white pine for me and a blue spruce for Bern. I decorate my tree only with things that fly--birds, angels, butterflies and silly things like the ornament that has an angel riding an elephant with wings. We have lots of weird things like that. And Bern's tree is usually earth bound things and all the ball shaped ornaments.
But since we have been so hassled by the endless steam of workers making our kitchen all new, we only have one tree this year. In the dining room beside one of the 7 foot tall windows in the front of our house. It happens to be the window our Puli likes to lay beside and look out at the street and all the horrible threats to our existence.
Today, Bela was laying there while I decorated the tree and Bern put stuff away in the kitchen that is done enough to put stuff away in. I went to the bathroom--there are other blogs about my bathroom habits that you can find it you want to, though why would you want to? Then Bern was yelling to me and I ran into the dining room, probably the biggest room in our house, and a room other people, if they lived here would make a living room with a big TV and all. We have no TVs downstairs. And our living room is a small room because we seldom 'live' in it. That's where the other tree would have been had things been different. The dining room is a place to eat, which is what we like more than most things, so we made the biggest room the dining room.
Too much explanation.
Anyway, I suspect the Puli, Bela by name, was where he usually was, under the tree looking out the window and he saw a monster in the street in front of our house and lept up barking, knocking the tree over. He weighs 50 pounds and is built like a Sherman Tank, so I have no doubt he could have done that.
Finally, after several options ended in madness, Bern drove a nail into the window frame and I handed her twine from both sides of the trunk of the tree and we tied it in place. That sucker won't fall down again and I put the large bag holding Bern's present so that Bela can't get back behind the tree again.
Every year for 7 years or so now, Bern creates some visual art for me for Christmas and I write her a poem or a short story. Below is the poem I wrote last year for her. She gave me an almost indescribable collage of everyone who is blood of my blood--our two children, their partners, our three grandchildren, our dog and cat--all pictures with folded paper coming out of what they call me. Dad, Jim, Baba, Grandpaw, Grampy, Man, 'mommy' for the cat and an incredible background of all those names over and over. I can't describe it, you'd have to see it. And I have seven years of stuff like that. I should have a show. I'll get an eighth one in a few days. Anyhow, here's last year's poem. This year I wrote a 26 page short story about a dog that gets lost and then...well, I can't give it away, but it is Christmas Miracle stuff.
WHITEOUT
(A
poem in five parts for Bern—Christmas 2011—with much, much
love....Jim)
(WHITEOUT
is a weather condition in which visability and contrast are severely
reduced by snow.)
i.
A
solitary figure trudges
across
of faceless landscape.
It
is bitterly cold and bleak beyond believing.
Nothing
makes sense.
Exhaustion
is near.
It
is dawn, or dusk.
Faint
light.
(The
horizon disappears completely and there are no reference points at
all, leaving the individual in a distorted orientation.)
ii.
Down
is up.
Left
is right.
Forward
is back.
East
is South and North is West.
The
figure pauses. Sits.
Dreams
of sleep or sleeps and dreams.
Either
the other, or the one.
(Whiteout
has been defined as: A
condition of diffuse light when no shadows are cast, due to a
continuous white cloud layer appearing to merge with the white snow
surface.)
iii.
Without
a shadow, who are we?
A
shadow is proof positive that we are there:
We
take up space,
block
light,
displace
air,
have
substance,
exist.
To
cast a shadow is to be Real.
Without
a shadow, where are we?
Do
we exist? Have being?
Shadowless,
are we real?
iv.
I
often experience whiteouts—mostly in winter, which is appropriate.
I
feel lost, disorientented,
confused
by pain, physical failures,
the
frailties of my body,
my
memory,
who
I am,
not
knowing if I BE,
or
not.
Some
whiteouts are emotional:
fear
of fading away into unbroken white,
wondering
if I have been
good
enough,
loving
enough,
caring
enough,
enough.
Disappearing
in whiteness,
dreaming
of sleep,
sleeping
dreamlessly.
Longing,
longing greatly,
longing
always
to
feel my way back to the front door.
(In
whiteouts no surface irregularities are visable, but a dark object
may be clearly seen. There is no visible horizon.)
v.
You
are the front door of my life.
You
are the 'clearly seen' object when my horizon is not visable.
You
have always oriented me in the whiteouts of my life.
Whether
I have been good enough,
loving
enough, caring enough,
enough...or
not,
I
could find my way,
reach
the front door,
orient
myself,
see
the horizon,
survive
the whiteouts,
weather
the storm,
move
through the bleakness and the chill,
the
dreams of sleeping
and
the sleeping dreams
and
find my way home.
You
give me back my shadow
and
make me exist,
make
me real,
make
me
be.
You
are the 'home' of my life
and
the clearing that leads to light
and
wholeness, and wonder,
and
magic, and love.
And
simply,
mostly,
always,
forever,
just
this:
Home.
Newtown
I haven't felt like blogging. I haven't felt like much of anything. Not since 9/11 has any event hurt me so much. Those children....oh, all that is possible is to ache.
Now most everyone is buried. How hard that must have been on everyone there.
Cheshire is about the population of Newtown. I can't imagine what it would be like, such carnage.
It has been hard for so many, mostly for the parents of those children....Oh, all that is possible is to ache.
Now most everyone is buried. How hard that must have been on everyone there.
Cheshire is about the population of Newtown. I can't imagine what it would be like, such carnage.
It has been hard for so many, mostly for the parents of those children....Oh, all that is possible is to ache.
Friday, December 14, 2012
The Triumph of Evil
I apologize profoundly for using this space to whine about my kitchen and my plumbing and whatever else I've whined about lately. I've tried to make it humorous whining, but today, when Death came to Newtown, I realize I have nothing at all to whine about and I realize not much of anything is humorous right now.
With 20 children and the adults who died today in Sandy Hook Elementary School all over the media, it's hard to feel my life is anything but remarkable.
Two of our grandchildren are 6 and most of the dead children are, apparently, that age. It is impossible to let yourself begin to imagine what those parents are feeling...and even if you began to 'imagine' it wouldn't be anywhere near the reality and depth of their pain.
It's been my experience as a priest that the worse lost anyone can endure is the loss of a child. I once was called to Mary Gray's house in Institute WV when her 64 year old son had died. Mary was in her 80's and when she saw me she burst into tears and said, "Jim, did they tell you my baby died?"
Nothing is worse or more unnatural or more evil than the death of a child.
My son called and I told him to hold those 3 little girls especially tightly tonight and let his heart ache for those people in Newtown who won't be able to hold their children this night.
The victims are all that matter right now. There is no need to try to psychoanalyse their killer, as I've heard so many try to do on TV and radio. It doesn't really matter what drove him to such depravity, all that matters are those who died, too soon, oh so very much too soon.
And it really isn't time to start the raving (which I will eventually start!) about gun control. All that matters today is the victims and the lives they will not get to live, the joys and sorrows they will not experience, the future that Evil took from them today.
And the survivors, perhaps more because their lives are now a nightmare of grief and loss and pain.
That's what matters today.
May their souls and the souls of all the departed, rest in peace.....
With 20 children and the adults who died today in Sandy Hook Elementary School all over the media, it's hard to feel my life is anything but remarkable.
Two of our grandchildren are 6 and most of the dead children are, apparently, that age. It is impossible to let yourself begin to imagine what those parents are feeling...and even if you began to 'imagine' it wouldn't be anywhere near the reality and depth of their pain.
It's been my experience as a priest that the worse lost anyone can endure is the loss of a child. I once was called to Mary Gray's house in Institute WV when her 64 year old son had died. Mary was in her 80's and when she saw me she burst into tears and said, "Jim, did they tell you my baby died?"
Nothing is worse or more unnatural or more evil than the death of a child.
My son called and I told him to hold those 3 little girls especially tightly tonight and let his heart ache for those people in Newtown who won't be able to hold their children this night.
The victims are all that matter right now. There is no need to try to psychoanalyse their killer, as I've heard so many try to do on TV and radio. It doesn't really matter what drove him to such depravity, all that matters are those who died, too soon, oh so very much too soon.
And it really isn't time to start the raving (which I will eventually start!) about gun control. All that matters today is the victims and the lives they will not get to live, the joys and sorrows they will not experience, the future that Evil took from them today.
And the survivors, perhaps more because their lives are now a nightmare of grief and loss and pain.
That's what matters today.
May their souls and the souls of all the departed, rest in peace.....
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