Monthly Archives: December 2019

Fallout

18 Wednesday Dec 2019

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There’s fallout from my Twitter experience. I deactivated my account. I don’t suffer fools gladly, especially when they are Roman Catholic bishops. It is an emotional hangover I am feeling. Best to just walk away.

As I wrote yesterday, I am up at this time, more or less naturally. Better not to resist. This morning features pain in my arthritic left hip. And the silence is not my friend today. I feel, yes, feel alienation and brokenness. There isn’t enough stuff in the world to fill the emptiness I feel at this time of year especially. I feel my spiritual dis-ease at this time.

I thought watching the Orthodox clergy at Svyatagorsk Lavra in the Don Bass region of Eastern Ukraine would get me out of this funk. I’m hearing a speech by a bishop, I think. With any luck, tbey will break out the censers, candles and start tbe chants.

It looks like we are in for some major speech-ifying in this episode. Oh well. Back to trainspotting I shall go.

Tuesday 17 December 2019

18 Wednesday Dec 2019

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I think I may as well accept that I awaken in tbe dead of night and am not tired. That means that I shall be up for a while. So this morning I was up at Three and not back asleep till Eight, and up again at Eleven. I got the trash out, made a trip to the bank, went to AA at noon, lunch with J. I swam 1750 meters, returned home, did a load of laundry, got into a food fight on Twitter for no good reason. Now it’s trainspotting til I decide what cartoons to watch. Popeye wins. That is always a good decision.

Life is pretty good.

Trolling For Misery

16 Monday Dec 2019

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It is a fundamental element of the “news” formula. Report the wars and riots, the political scandals and machinations, the celebrity sexual permutations (who did what to whom), the cute animal and/or baby story, and the disasters, natural or man made. The goal is to attract followers of the stories.

Who decides what is news? I love that bit of dialogue from A Christmas Story, where The Old Man (Darren McGavin) remarks on the “clodhopper in Griffith, Indiana who swallowed a yo-yo.” He declares, “That’s real news, not this politics slop!” I have agreed so many times,

We should think of news anchors as storytellers, like some bard in an ancient Mycaenean court, telling a story to satisfy the king. For me, the greatest of the modern news bards (storytellers) were Edward R Murrow and Walter Cronkite.

Murrow, reporting from London during The Blitz, was telling a story of epic, existential proportions. The British had to win. They were, in the Autumn of 1940, all that stood between survival and oblivion for Judaeo-Christian Civilization. That is not hyperbole.

Cronkite reported on the great human adventure of the Twentieth Century, the space program and the lunar landings. It was his signature story. The World has been searching for stories of epic dimensions ever since.

By necessity, we have to make stories melodramas, to attract and retain viewers or followers . Except the old formulas are no longer working. The ratings of the cable news channels are tanking. We don’t believe, or outright ignore, the contemporary bards. Each story demands a new sort of hook. If climate change fails to attract interest, find a new angle, a new champion. We’ve gone from Al Gore to Leonardo DiCaprio to Greta Thunberg, all in the course of a few short years. And if she fails, Pope Francis can stick his Argentinian schnozola into the story, as if anybody takes him seriously. The sex abuse and financisl malfeasance scandals in The Church have made him a symbolic castrato. Deal with those outrages, Holy Father, then circle back to deal with climate change.

So that’s enough. I am tired and satisfied with myself for presenting this post off the top of my head, as it were.

Night all. I love you.

Sleepy Silver Sunday.

15 Sunday Dec 2019

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After a typical early morning wakeup, I went back to sleep and slept til nearly noon. Guilt free, because we went to The Vigil Mass last night. And a lovely Mass it was too, with a thoughtful homily from Father John David.

I awoke, made coffee, read a highly erotic blog post from Olivia at Olivia Submits, then painful memoir from Jadescastle at The Chrysanthemum And The Sword.

Now I watch newsreels on YouTube. I am waiting for J to return. We are celebrating the 25th Anniversary of our first date. That night, we were to buy a Christmas tree at a big box hardware chain, now defunct, Hechinger’s.

But first we had dinner at The Robin Inn. If you read Patricia Cornwell mysteries, set in Richmond, she mentions the place. The cops do eat there. That night, she had manicotti, I think I had spaghetti. We enjoyed each other’s company. i would call her the next day at her office. There was a second date. And sex. And plans for a life togetber. We were married after seven years of courtship.

And now, on this beautiful Sunday, I am eager for her return.

Clearance, Clarence?

14 Saturday Dec 2019

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The joke from Airplane! comes to mind as I just cleared the books, magazines, trash, catalogs and obsolete electronic devices from a chair in my den.

BUT WAIT!!!! There’s More!!!!.

As in a whole house. The idea of doing trash triage is daunting. That somewhere, amidst this crap, is a Very Important Paper  (VIP). I could simply get a bag and start tossing stuff in. Maybe I will.

There are closets of things to give away. Clothes. We have my late father-in-law’s 37″ inch HD television still sitting in the carton in which we repacked it when we emptied his house.

In many ways, this is a classic rant. I have posted on this before. Right now, as I sit, I know there is more to do. The enormity frightens me. The fear is that I will dispose of something meaningful, that I will miss only after I have shredded it or sent it to the recyclers, or the landfill.

I know. This is a High Class Problem.

Sport, So Pure

14 Saturday Dec 2019

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If one watches sports, one notices athletes. Some have beautiful toned sculpted bodies, both men and women. To see them move represents complete grace and beauty. Watching cricket is to observe these beautiful, extraordinary people.

Stand out in the heat 100+° F. Then at a moment’s notice, make that a millisecond, off a fielder runs at a break neck sprint to stop a ball before it reaches the boundary rope and a four run boundary. The bowler makes a delivery after another such sprint.

The batsman will position himself (herself) at the crease and with their wrists, arms, and upper body, bat that pitch where the fielders aren’t.

The game looks so simple. But we know better. So deuce difficult, made to look simple, by these athletic prodigies.

Reconciliation

14 Saturday Dec 2019

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It had been three months. Every week there are two chances, Thursday and Saturday. All I have to do is wait on line for a while, then when it’s my turn to go in and sit down. Or kneel at the Vatican II mandated partition. And on 12 December, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I didn’t put it off any longer.

I sit, facing Father. I told him if he is acting in persona Christi, that he is acting for Jesus. And if I had something to tell Jesus, I would not kneel behind a partition, but look right at Jesus as I shared the things I wanted no one to know.

So I confess. What I confess is less important than that I do. “You’re as sick as your secrets.” , is the 12 Step Recovery aphorism. What keeps me away is my commitment to looking good, no matter how uneasy with myself I can be. That’s called Pride, worse than Lust or Avarice or Acedia (that is the particular type of sloth called spiritual laziness).

I open my heart. Tell Father (Father, young enough to be my son). My sins are a reprise of that last confession’s sins. He gives me as a penance to ask the Blessed Mother to be my spiritual mother when I pray the last Glorious Mystery, Mary’s Coronation. And I do.

Sceptics will scratch their heads in wonderment. Cynics will be relentless in their scorn for my naïveté. But I don’t care.

I’m there in that room, with that priest, with Jesus, metaphysically present, because my experience with evil on this side of eternity compels me to trust God in all His Triune Majesty. And Love.

People talk about Cafeteria Catholics, those who pick and choose rites, doctrines, dogmas that make them comfortable; Christmas Midnight Mass, Ashes on Ash Wednesday, (If you are a celebrity or a politician, get your picture taken with that black smudge on your forehead.) Palms on Palm Sunday, and Easter, when happy Church returns.

But there are what I call Cookbook Catholics, who follow a recipe for Salvation, that they trust will keep them from damnation, formulaic believers, whom I cannot fault. Then there are those who have peered into the abyss where Evil awaits at the bottom. I have seen the addicts, the tortured, the brutalized, the raped. I ask God to fill my heart with His redeeming Love, so I can spread that Love in my little way.

The Sun Is Shining Somewhere

12 Thursday Dec 2019

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I awoke after about four hours sleep around 4:00 AM. I thought I would fall back asleep, but no.

I thought I would see if #98 would be passing through Ashland any time soon, but no. The Silver Meteor (NB#98) is running late. Going downstairs, I grind some coffee beans, brew a pot.

Turning on Willow, I see where New Zealand and Australia are playing a test match in Perth. It is day time in Perth, late afternoon, and hot 40°C (104°F), while it is still dark in Richmond and -5°C (23°F). Dusk was approaching in Perth as dawn was breaking here. The little glimpse of Summer with a tenacious New Zealand squad facing the prolific Aussie batsmen of Warner, Smith and Labuschagne did wonders for my spirits. Play was called after 90 overs with Australia 248/4. Labushagne over 100 and not out.

Now, I am sleepy again. Back to bed.