Last week we talked about suicide and abuse. Now, for a moment, let’s turn our attention on how we, as people who are not clinicians, can help people who have been abused. I take it as fundamental that in an emergency you should call paramedics, and that people who are suicidal shouldn’t be left alone with knives or belts, and that it’s highly abusive to call 911 or use force on someone who isn’t actively suicidal but just expresses a desire for death.... Read more
I went to Mass downtown today, at the old Baroque-style church with the cavernous ceiling and the stained glass windows. The Mass was Novus Ordo but it was said ad orientem, with great dignity and formality. The church was awash in colored light; there were flickering candles in every corner. Most of the responses were said in Latin. I loved it. I look forward to that Mass every week. It comforts my soul in a thousand ways. There are a so... Read more
I found out something joyful today, namely that the archdiocese of Chicago is making a very concrete action toward a more whole life culture, and they are doing so in-house with a new parental leave policy. (H/t to Mark Shea, as I heard it first from him.) I believe that a major archdiocese modeling better parental leave policies is a great witness for our society. Regardless, it is a wonderful thing in itself – I hope that we Catholics can agree... Read more
When I first smelled the smoke, I thought it was the neighbors’ fireplace. Someone nearby has a wood stove; when the weather gets chilly, they burn logs and apparently trash. But the weather was not chilly that night. It was warm. We had all rickety unscreened windows open, propped with chair legs to keep them in place. This is the wreck of an economically depressed industrial town, as I’ve written about many times. It gets so you make up excuses... Read more
No time for a long meditation today, ladies and gents. I am typing this with freeze-dried chicken poop stuck under my nails, and you know what that means: I’m gardening. There was torrential rain and then an unexpected late freeze over the weekend, so instead of planting my garden in timely manner I hoarded all my unplanted seedlings indoors, hoping I didn’t get busted for being a drug house, and am in the middle of planting them all right now. My dear Michael... Read more
St. Joseph, look upon me and see in me, your son, Jesus Christ. Care for me and mine, as once in this life you cared for him. Obtain for me by your prayers the grace of the Holy Spirit working in my heart, that I might see my neighbor with the mind of Christ and thus seeing, as though through a sight-restoring lens, I might see Christ in my neighbor, and my neighbor in Christ. Prayer with me that every... Read more
Just a warning to my friends who have been through assault– I’m going to talk about trauma today, a little graphically, to try and help people who have never been through it to understand. If you don’t want to read that, you can scroll down past the picture of Jesus, to my message for you at the end. So, by now we’ve all heard that a 20-year-old woman in the Netherlands had herself euthanized, because of severe trauma from sexual abuse which... Read more
I don’t mind when people disagree with me, but I don’t like to be called names. Most people don’t. I’ve been called quite a few names in my day, and some of them were more hurtful than others. When a commentator yesterday informed some of my commentators and me that we were crazy, psycho, paranoid and needed to take off our tinfoil hats, though, I took particular offense. I was even more horrified when I found out that this commentator... Read more
First of all, please pray for my neighbor Kim. Kim has cancer of some sort and is allergic to anesthesia, so they’re going to have to do a torturous-sounding biopsy while she’s awake. Also this week her brother had a stroke and some idiot totaled her car. Lord, hear our prayer! Secondly, for anyone who would like to help my dear friend Erin fly her son’s body back to Arizona for burial and with funeral expenses, they are accepting donations.... Read more
Every other Sunday, after Mass, The Community would come. As far as I know that was the group’s only name, The Community with a big fat capital T and C. The Community, a conglomeration of people who thought of themselves as Charismatic Catholics, consisted of two families with other children besides my own family, and a handful of scary older men and women. Most of them wanted to hug me, and though I didn’t like hugging, I didn’t dare say... Read more
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