Dear Mother --

When my time comes to die, please hold me close, as you did your Son.








Thank you, Abba's Little Girl!

Woodworking and Catholic thought

While scraping and sanding two window sashes that will be re-stained and re-varnished, I noticed that it's nearly impossible to get all the old stain out of the wood. Scraping is like going to confession: the surface junk comes off, but the stain remains. Purgatory (that merciful doctrine) tells us that all the deep-seated stains, come from years and decades of sin, can be and are removed; probably very slowly and painfully, but with the promise of heaven when we're purified enough to go there. I suspect that for most humans (me especially) the deepest stain is an attachment - sort of a deformed affection - for our favorite sins. That is what needs removal the most.

It's hot

At my house in Minneapolis, it's 104 in the sun and 90 in the shade.
There is a place hotter than this.
Let's stay out of it!

All Saints and All Souls

After my dad died in 2002, following (I hope and pray) my mom to God's hands, I had a dream.

I was walking arm in arm with my five brothers and sisters on a very wide road through gently rolling countryside on a mild day in the summer. My older brother's daughters and grandchildren were behind him, one sister's sons were behind her, another sister's three children were behind her. Cousins were spread out to the right and left of us . . . but there was no one in front of us anymore.

"The souls of the just are in the hands of God, and no misfortune shall befall them . . . ." (from memory). Pray for them anyway. Praying for the souls of my dad and mom and all who have gone before me is one way of honoring them. The fourth commandment doesn't end with our parents' deaths.

Chanson d'automne

Les sanglots longs

des violons de l'automne

blessent mon cœur

d'une langueur monotone

The long sobs

Of the violins of autumn

Wound my heart

With a monotonous langour.

--- Paul Verlaine

(This poem was used by Radio London to alert the French Resistance to the imminence of the D-day invasion; the second couplet was a signal that the invasion would commence within 24 hours.)

I was talking to a French-Canadian friend on the phone last night, and she and I agreed that one of the best things about middle age and beginning to be old, is that the goal is in sight. I think Chesterton called it "the inn at the end of the road," and he did write this:

Lo! I am come to autumn,

When all the leaves are gold;

Grey hairs and golden leaves cry out

The year and I are old.

Reminds me too of St. Paul's thought that "I have run the race."

One of the most important points of Catholic Christianity is that we do not belong here; we were made for Heaven, and this life is only a short eye-blink of preparation for the real thing. "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered the mind of man, what things God has prepared for those who love Him."

Ask me if I care

I was at a friend's house tonight, di sheynste yidishe meydl im velt, and one TV channel mentioned that they would be adjusting their broadcast schedule to work in Michael Jackson's funeral. Aside from our common humanity, and all that implies, what was so great about Michael Jackson that I should go into an orgy of keening and wailing over his death? I bet he's getting more TV coverage than Kennedy's funeral did in 1963, or 9-11 got. I think this is absofreakinlutely ridiculous.