Sunday morning TV

I was awake early last Sunday, and while I waited for the paper to arrive, I decided to tune into the station that carries a half-hour Mass at 7:30 on channel 26. This is not EWTN, so a local priest says the Mass with some local parish providing the congregation. I knew the priest - he used to be pastor at my parish. His dad was a local TV personality, so he is well-versed in media presentations. I was surprised to see that the congregation this time was from my current parish - a dozen older women (of course), and a set of grandparents with their Cub Scout grandson. I recognized several of the women - one is the mother of one of the authors of the Encyclopedia of Chicago. A professional song leader and pianist provided the music, but you couldn't hear anyone singing except the leader. The homily was brief, but memorable, on the blind man who asked to see. The main point being no one can "see" anything or anyone outside of themselves if they are in the dark due to the inner walls they have built around themselves. I noticed several little short-cuts in the Mass, but it was all done in 29 minutes with no commercials except for a pitch at the very end for funding from the director of the Mercy Home for Boys and Girls, which sponsors the show.

Channel 26 aired one commercial for an attorney specializing in cases of nursing home accidents or mistreatment (nursing home residents are the early Sunday morning TV audience, no doubt), then went right to the next show, a service from the Apostolic Church of God on the south side of town, so I stayed to watch that, too. This one had a full gospel choir (everyone in matching robes) with several soloists and a 10-piece band in front of hundreds of people (all dressed to the nines) in an auditorium-style setting. After several rousing numbers, the pastor, an older man who had appeared in the beginning by himself for a brief appeal to all the "sisters and brothers" to be sure to vote on Election Day (didn't say who should get their votes, but that's pretty much understood here), turned over the pulpit to a young deacon for the sermon. He was nervous, sweating, and stumbling over his words until he got into his message on the story of the Good Samaritan, then he roamed the stage, talking a mile a minute. By the end he had everyone talking to the people around them to make sure that no one remained a needy stranger. I felt like applauding his effort!

After another commercial from the nursing home problem-chaser, Joel Osteen came on the air from his mega-church in Houston. I bought his best-seller books for my library, back when I was still working, so here was my chance to see him in action. He was slim and polished to a T, with nary a look at any notes (must have had a teleprompter somewhere). The congregation was immense - probably a thousand or more. Certainly not as well dressed as the Apostolics, though. I heard a baby crying somewhere off in the crowd, which lent the whole thing a little honesty, I thought. Joel's sermon was about not letting hard luck keep you down - that God will reward anyone who keeps the faith through thick and thin. The word "reward" kept reappearing. That made me uncomfortable, as though he was promising ultimate happiness in this life for anyone who had to suffer for awhile, as in the story of Job. His prime example was about a young man who had been on dialysis for over ten years, and finally found a friend who wanted to donate a kidney to him, so now he's healthy and happy. We all know that not every story has a happy ending, but that's what Joel seemed to promise, if you only keep smiling and praising God.

At the end, I had to admit that Osteen and the Apostolics were very entertaining. They both made big pitches for funding at the end of their shows. Joel Osteen's pitches reminded me of Disney World commercials. The best thing I can say about the Catholic Mass is that it certainly was humble.

The End of Halloween for Us?

It is now 7:39 pm on Halloween night. The weather is cool, but clear. I have had a carved pumpkin with a battery light inside it on my front porch since 2:30 this afternoon. My porch light is on and there are lights on inside the house. We have had NO trick-or-treaters at the door. I actually saw some kids in costume running down the opposite side of the street around 5:30, but they never came to this side. And, there are school kids on the street - both sides! None of them know us very well, though. We're too old even to hang out with their parents.

I can only assume that Halloween has reached some sort of watershed around here for kids and parents. No more roaming the neighborhood, ringing doorbells of strangers to get candy loot. Even though I can understand it, it makes me sort of sad. How well I remember running around after dark with hundreds of other kids dressed as bums and ghosts (the cheapest costumes, after all) getting a huge bag of candy. Then the real fun - sorting all the Tootsie Rolls from the Three Musketeers from the chintzy suckers, etc. Trading with your siblings for your favorites. It's hard to think that that was more than 50 years ago.

As it is, I might decide that this is the last time I get out my knife and newspapers for a pumpkin, the last time I debate whether to buy a healthier alternative to Hershey bars (nah!), the last time I hang monstery decorations on the front door. There's still time to keep me in the game, kids!

Frederick Buechner, Extraordinary Soul

Since I just finished The Sacred Journey, Buechner's wonderful spiritual autobiography of his early years, I must share a few excerpts that I love. He was born in the same year as my dad, and much of what he tells about his life in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, made me see my dad's early life in a new way.

"God's coming is always unforeseen, I think, and the reason, if I had to guess, is that if he gave us anything much in the way of advance warning, more often than not we would have made ourselves scarce long before he got there."

"To journey for the sake of saving our own lives is little by little to cease to live in any sense that really matters, even to ourselves, because it is only by journeying for the world's sake -- even when the world bores and sickens and scares you half to death -- that little by little we start to come alive."

I'm looking forward to reading the second volume that continues the story at the point where he, at the age of 27, enters Union Theological Seminary in NYC.

Annie Dillard, kindred soul

I read and admired Pilgrim at Tinker Creek years ago, then promptly forgot about it. Decades later, Annie Dillard wrote in a similar vein, For the Time Being, her thoughts about the presence (or absence) of God in various small events and individual tragedies in the world.

These 2 quotes from the latter book struck something in me:

1) Suddenly there is a point where religion becomes laughable. Then you decide that you are nevertheless religious. - Thomas Merton, p. 77

2) As much as anyone, I imagine, I walk in the shadows of faith. - Teilhard de Chardin, p. 146

Hildegarde in my book - and in the news!

I finished the book, God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Journey to the Heart of Medicine, by Victoria Sweet, just in time to be surprised and delighted to hear that soon Hildegarde of Bingen will become an official saint and a doctor of the Church. In her book, an account of Laguna Honda, the USA's last "almshouse" for the poor and destitute in San Francisco, Dr. Sweet, who was one of the medical staff at Laguna Honda, talks about her study of the benefits of "slow medicine" as practiced by medieval healers, such as Hildegarde. She even relates how she used a method of treatment she learned by reading about Hildegarde to heal a woman whose decades of drug abuse had resulted in a complicated health crisis that defeated other doctors.

Slow medicine counts on the use of "Dr. Quiet, Dr. Diet, and Dr. Merryman" - treatment that stresses peace, nutritious and delicious food, comfort and joy - all this over pharmaceuticals, surgeries, and quick release from hospitalization. Health care is moving away from slow medicine, and we will be the poorer and sicker for it.

Hildegarde of Bingen has long been one of my heroes. I love to quote her, " All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all shall be exceedingly well."

First Veggies from the Garden!

Spring is so early here this year. The lilacs are all bloomed out, and they are usually just in time for Mother's Day. The peonies will probably bloom before graduation time at the beginning of June, BUT, I planted cucumbers and tomatoes yesterday when I saw that the weather forecast for the first week of May included 70s and 80s. While I was doing that, I realized that some of the French breakfast radishes (do they really eat radishes for breakfast in France?) were ready! Great on our salad last night, and they're very mild, too - maybe that's why they have the "breakfast" label. Too bad I don't have a picture of the ones we ate, but here's a substitute.

A Revolutionary's Thoughts on Teaching

Graphic novels are one of the favorites in my reading lists. When I checked the library's latest, I found one written by none other than Bill Ayers, of Weather Underground fame. He is now newly retired from the University of Illinois at Chicago where he was a distinguished professor of education. He wrote the book with a graphic artist and it was so interesting, I dropped everything else to finish it in two days. His ideas reminded me of Summerhill, the English school that allowed students to choose their own learning goals.

A few days after I finished the book, I had an hour's drive out to do some grandkids sitting and turned on NPR. A local weekly program of music, lectures, etc., The Paper Machete, was on and Bill Ayers was the guest. He was recounting the dinner he and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, had donated in February 2012 as a raffle item for the Illinois Humanities Council. Instead of getting a measly couple of hundred dollars for a home-cooked dinner for 6 at the Ayers/Dohrn home - as they have gotten for this type of dinner donation for other causes, someone chose to eliminate all other bidders by bidding $2500 - right-wing commentator, Tucker Carlson! Carlson also invited the notorious Andrew Breitbart, who attended the dinner with Ayers and Dohrn just a few weeks before his sudden and unexpected death. Hear what happened at the dinner in the WBEZ podcast, which takes about 15 minutes. Scroll down the page to the podcast arrow. Fascinating.

Ode to Librarians from Red Green

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyy8gYkU2TY#t=3m47s

Don't bother to watch anything after the song is over.

Adventure of the Soul

I've just started a big, fat autobiography of Gandhi. The introduction has me so interested in it already. Gandhi writes that, in his life he wants to achieve only Moksha - what others might call salvation - and that for him, God is Absolute Truth, although he has only had faint glimpses of this. He also says, "..for the essence of religion is morality." Thus, he decided to write of his "experiments" with truth in his choices and actions.

I have vague memories that Gandhi has been criticized for not treating his wife and children well, so I will be looking for the truth of this, too.

How to Learn Something

Saw this post in a library professionals newsletter, and since I now have reached the era of "senior moments," I was really interested in it. I remember back in the bad old days that I never believed in studying regularly - I was always cramming at the last minute. In some ways that worked well for me, but this article shows how I could have done better - but not by starting earlier and being more consistent about it.

If the best way to learn something is to repeat the process of remembering it at a point (not too long after you first learned it) where you really have to dig around in your memory for it, here will be the acid test for me: remembering a new password. I usually use the same old one and never change it - a mortal sin on the Web, apparently. I'm going to change my Google password right now - and not write it down! Stay tuned.

Now I Can Heal

Since Halloween, I've been treating the skin on my face with Fluorouracil 5, a cream based on chemotherapy concoctions that exposes and destroys precancerous skin lesions caused by sun damage. It's a long and demoralizing process - scares kids, too - but the payoff is that it can treat all active and latent skin lesions in one shot.

After I saw the Website posted by a guy who went through the same thing nearly 10 years ago, I was encouraged to stay with it until my dermatologist finally said I was done last Tuesday.

The first photo shows me in the beginning when I only applied the cream at night 3 times a week for a month. After that, it was every night for two months. Ok, I got one week off right after Christmas, but that was all. I could cover most of the red spots with Bobbi Brown concealer, but after awhile, even that couldn't hide them all. People at work were understanding, but I got a lot of horrified looks from library patrons.



The last photo shows me last Tuesday with bare skin - right after I got the good news to stop the treatment. I'm a mess, but the scabs are starting to flake off already with new pink baby skin underneath. The doc said I lasted longer with the cream than any other woman he's treated. Let's hope my results (no skin cancer) last longer, too! Moral: use sunscreen.

I'm on YouTube

Here's a little film made with staff from the library where I work. Can you find me? Too bad none of the handful of men that work there were able to be in the film, but we do have a nicely diverse group there. I learn a lot about the world from the people I work with.