Let’s get serious for a moment.
In order to have a successful and meaningful set of principles, the overall health of society must take precedence. Reproductive principles must be based on the overall ecology of our planet. The days of unrestricted human breeding are numbered. We are defiling our planet with our progeny. To put it bluntly, we are shitting in our own nest.
We have never before faced this problem. But now that we have succeeded so profligately, we must forever bear the burden of managing our own birth rate. Until now, wars, disease and famine have thinned the population effectively. But China’s experience should be a warning to all of us. Overt population control is now an indispensable part of our survival. And if we don’t do it at the individual level, we will have to do it at the governmental level, as China has learned. So pick your poison. Use birth control or starve to death.
Catholics are not stupid. They know how to deal with this. But their leadership continues to bury their heads in the sands while the rest of us quietly go about the business of managing our sexual behavior in a more practical way.
The conservative mantra has always rested within the confines of religion. And that is why it is necessary to change the way religion deals with human procreation and sexuality. At the core of the conservative agenda is the desire to protect the innocence of our children. Only parents, they say, can decide when a child is ready for sexual information. But we all know that some parents simply do not accept that responsibility. Et Voila! Children have sex and children have children. The conservative program is an abstinence only program. Great idea. It does not and will not ever work. It is blatantly naive. So the stork continues to bring babies to the ignorant masses while schools are forced to abdicate their role as the purveyors of human sexual education.
When I was in the fifth grade, I remember sitting in the basement one day, painting one of my monster models. I believe it was the Mummy. My younger brother, Tim, came bounding down the stairs looking for trouble.
“You still painting that thing?”
“Go away.”
“Come on, man. Let’s play catch.”
“Go play with yourself.”
“You’re a queer.”
“No I’m not.”
“Yes you are. Steve told me you don’t know about screwing.”
“What?”
“Stevie told me that you don’t know anything about it.”
“I do so.”
“Do not.”
“Do so. What is it?”
“Screwing is when a man puts his diggy wacker into his wife’s pussy to make a baby.”
“What? That’s nasty! Mom would never let Dad do that.”
“Yes she would. She did it 5 times already. That’s how you get babies. There are 5 of us.”
And right on cue, my older sister, Cathe walked down the stairs.
“Ask Cathe,” Tim said.
“Ask me what?” Cathe said.
“Ask her if Dad and Mom screwed.”
Cathe and Tim immediately started laughing. I didn’t see what was so funny.
“Mom and Dad would never do that. Cathe, tell Tim to shut up,” I pled.
Tim and I stared at Cathe. Tim had a smirk on his face. For once, he was the older wiser brother and I was the stupid little kid brother. Cathe tried to stifle her laughter.
“Cathe?” I knew Cathe would tell it straight. To this day, Cathe is still the go to girl when it comes to pure, frank honesty.
But Cathe wouldn’t say it. She just shook her head and said, “Man oh man, Rod. Don’t be stupid.”
“You gotta be kidding me. Why would God make them do that?” I tried to square my religion with reality. My religion would certainly not be in favor of such a nasty thing. God would not make people do that. It just was not possible. But there it was.
“How do adults keep from thinking about it all the time?” I asked myself. And for days, weeks, months, years and decades I have never been able to go more than an hour or so without thinking about it. Stunning. But the question that plagued me for days after that conversation was this: Why would God create something so nasty? And I was immediately grateful for the Immaculate Conception. At least Mary was pure.
Throughout my life, encounters with sex have been some of the most traumatic moments of my life. The loss of my virginity was the first in a long line of really bad sexual encounters.
My Grandaddy was in the hospital for a heart attack. He was recovering nicely and I was asked to go home with Grandmother and watch over her for a few days until he got home. It was a great responsibility and I took it very seriously.
I was a freshman at University of Louisville and I had the lead in my class play. I told my Grandmother I was going to my first rehearsal and told her I would be back before midnight. She asked me not to be too late because she knew she would worry. The great irony here was that I was supposed to be there to help relieve the stress. I was supposed to make her more at ease. I was supposed to do the right thing.
When the rehearsal was over, I called Grandmother to tell here I was going out with my friends for a little while and that I would be home before long. That was my honest intention.
As we left the auditorium one of the actresses ask me to come home with her. She and the other girls had correctly guessed that I was a virgin. She wanted to be first in line. It was an offer I just could not refuse. I forgot my promise to my Grandmother and followed my erection to its inevitable destiny.
Betsy was sweet and determined. She tried to get me to make the first move but I was too frozen with fear to initiate the action. I had never been asked to come to a woman’s apartment and I thought maybe I was jumping to conclusions. We had a few drinks and she wanted to know if I would like a tour of her place. Unbelievably, I said no. So we sat there waiting to get things going. Eventually it dawned on me that a tour might be just what the doctor ordered. The clock had drifted will past midnight by now and my conscience nearly kicked in and saved me. But the chance to finally score a touchdown was just too powerful to ignore.
“How ‘bout that tour?” I said, stupidly. And we made our way to the bedroom. I sat on the bed making chit chat instead of taking charge. She finally realized she was running the show and disappeared into the bedroom. I was struck with fear.
Should I take off my clothes? Or does she just want to smooch? I took a chance and removed my pants and slid under the covers. When she reentered the room, it was clear that I had guessed right. As if!
She was a large woman and I had to struggle to figure out exactly how to tackle the logistics. I eventually managed to get down to business. A few kisses and some awkward rolling around got me close to the goal. It never occurred to me to reach down with my hand and guide the process. And in retrospect, maybe she thought it was my idea of foreplay. But when I finally got plugged in I barely had time to get in more than a few good lunges before I was finished. I can remember her pleading with me to slow down. And I remember her saying over and over....”No, no, no.” And finally, “Shit.”
I got up immediately and grabbed at my pants. Suddenly, the weight of my misdeeds fell upon me as the blood rushed back into my head.
“Wait. Wait. Wait,” was all she could say. But I was half dressed and on my way out the door before she could grab me.
“You can’t leave yet,” was the last thing she said before I bolted through door and ran down the staircase skipping every other step.
When I finally got home it was past three o’clock and Grandmother was crying when I threw open the door. Of all the mortal sins I have committed in my life, to this day, this is the absolute worst. My Grandaddy gave me the chance to show that I was a man. But I let him down miserably and hurt my Grandmother deeply in the process. Fortunately she was so relieved to see me that she went straight to bed and fell sound asleep within minutes. I never slept that night. But I also knew that confessing these sins was going to be impossible. I committed fornication and I hurt my Grandmother. The fornication sin was mortal and the pain I caused to
my Grandmother was venial. But I knew which sin was grave and which was unimportant.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Fallen Catholic (continued)
Okay, this is not a Catholic problem at all. The American sexual morality play is a convoluted mess. Teaching our progeny the basics of human sexuality is wrapped up in superstition and ignorance actively propagated by conservatives in all sects. It would be great if we could point to enlightened wisdom from Jesus on this one, but Jesus was asleep at the wheel on the subject. He was certainly a radical liberal when it came to the subject of adultery but only within the context of his own time.
Being honest about our sexual appetite within the confines of Catholicism is just impossible. The effects of testosterone are as irresistible as the urge to eat. As soon as we finish a sexual encounter, the clock begins ticking again toward another indulgence. Females are less prone to the aggressive tendencies native to males but their urges are no less pervasive. If we would just be honest about this most basic need, we could forge a moral code that makes more sense.
My wife has told me about the infidelity issues that plagued her first marriage. Her husband frequently stayed out all night. She was a devout Catholic and starved for attention. A nurse and a beautiful woman, she was the object of affection for many of the wealthy doctors she assisted. Her husband encouraged her to find a boyfriend so that she would not feel so neglected. But she had no interest in that kind of behavior and the nagging emotional weight became too much for her. So her intense desire to start a family with a loving husband was gradually beaten down and nearly silenced. She fell into depression. When she was at the nadir of her struggle, a Catholic priest tried to comfort her by saying, “There are far more horrible sins in this world than those of infidelity.”
Perhaps some kind of sexual identity program would have steered her clear of that first painful marriage. She did not share the same sexual appetites as her spouse. And it seems to me, looking back on my days as a thirty-year-old, that men and women in that age group are not naturally monogamous. Testosterone rules the brains of that younger age group. The first step towards healing our diseased sexual identity is to recognize the difference instead of denying it. As a middle aged man in his late fifties, I no longer feel the intense urges brought about by high levels of testosterone. I am sincerely grateful for the respite.
Fidelity is now its own reward for me. But as a thirty-year-old I had to hide from those proclivities. Back then, fidelity was a prison that I had to bear in order to gain respect. Fortunately, I was married for only a fraction of my early years. Otherwise I doubt that I would have been able to remain faithful to one partner for long. That is why I believe there must be an acceptance that older men cannot set the standards for younger men. Women must set standards only for themselves. And the reason for the divergence of values is tied inexorably to libido.
Okay, this is not a Catholic problem at all. The American sexual morality play is a convoluted mess. Teaching our progeny the basics of human sexuality is wrapped up in superstition and ignorance actively propagated by conservatives in all sects. It would be great if we could point to enlightened wisdom from Jesus on this one, but Jesus was asleep at the wheel on the subject. He was certainly a radical liberal when it came to the subject of adultery but only within the context of his own time.
Being honest about our sexual appetite within the confines of Catholicism is just impossible. The effects of testosterone are as irresistible as the urge to eat. As soon as we finish a sexual encounter, the clock begins ticking again toward another indulgence. Females are less prone to the aggressive tendencies native to males but their urges are no less pervasive. If we would just be honest about this most basic need, we could forge a moral code that makes more sense.
My wife has told me about the infidelity issues that plagued her first marriage. Her husband frequently stayed out all night. She was a devout Catholic and starved for attention. A nurse and a beautiful woman, she was the object of affection for many of the wealthy doctors she assisted. Her husband encouraged her to find a boyfriend so that she would not feel so neglected. But she had no interest in that kind of behavior and the nagging emotional weight became too much for her. So her intense desire to start a family with a loving husband was gradually beaten down and nearly silenced. She fell into depression. When she was at the nadir of her struggle, a Catholic priest tried to comfort her by saying, “There are far more horrible sins in this world than those of infidelity.”
Perhaps some kind of sexual identity program would have steered her clear of that first painful marriage. She did not share the same sexual appetites as her spouse. And it seems to me, looking back on my days as a thirty-year-old, that men and women in that age group are not naturally monogamous. Testosterone rules the brains of that younger age group. The first step towards healing our diseased sexual identity is to recognize the difference instead of denying it. As a middle aged man in his late fifties, I no longer feel the intense urges brought about by high levels of testosterone. I am sincerely grateful for the respite.
Fidelity is now its own reward for me. But as a thirty-year-old I had to hide from those proclivities. Back then, fidelity was a prison that I had to bear in order to gain respect. Fortunately, I was married for only a fraction of my early years. Otherwise I doubt that I would have been able to remain faithful to one partner for long. That is why I believe there must be an acceptance that older men cannot set the standards for younger men. Women must set standards only for themselves. And the reason for the divergence of values is tied inexorably to libido.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Fallen Catholic (continued)
Sin is an idea whose usefulness has passed. I do not say this as someone devoid of morality. I say this as an uncommonly flawed, run of the mill bozo riding the bus to perdition. If I could be Pope for a day, this would be my first edict:
“Pope Rodney of the Poopy Pants has decided that henceforth and forever, Catholics shall strike the phrase “mortal sin” from all subsequent theological intercourse. The phrase “venial sin” shall also be stricken. We shall hereby replace all such references with the following phrases. “Jaw dropping stupidity” will now be the new phrase for mortal sin. And “uncommonly dumb stuff” will be substituted for venial sin.
Pope Rodney also has created a list of formerly sinful acts that will heretofore be considered completely without moral hazard.
Masturbation
Homosexual copulation
Deviant sex acts of any kind between assenting adults
Cussing (Trust me, God doesn’t give a shit.)
Drinking
Teasing a cat
Divorce
Spitting in your sister’s lemonade (okay maybe this is still a sin)
Killing someone will be referred to as jaw dropping stupidity. The consequences of murder purchase enormous grief for the perpetrator. God seldom needs to step in and set the scales straight. The killer almost always ends up miserable. (unless the killee is a scourge on society...like a used car salesman)
Committing adultery is in a category all its own for stupidity. It turns you into a cheater and a liar. One cannot commit adultery without lying or cheating. And life becomes a series of attempts to cover ones mounting shit pile of lies. It is the great treadmill of karma. The faster you run, the faster it catches up with you. And just like George Jetson, you eventually end up flying around the treadmill while Astro and the cat watch with amusement.
If we de-sin-afy ourselves and present sin for what it truly is, we can make great strides toward a more enlightened point of view. Don’t get me wrong. I know that the Catholic leadership will never realize that humor is the most powerful weapon in God’s arsenal. But as a fallen Catholic I reserve the right to suggest common sense improvements in a way that shames these modern day pharisees out of their comfort zones. A practicing Catholic would never be so blunt and straight forward.
Just for balance I will also publish a list of new sins, er, I mean uncommonly dumb stuff.
It will be uncommonly dumb to :
Lay around in a filthy house
Short change a customer or cashier
Give a good waitress a ten percent tip
Drive slow in the fast lane
Harass your neighbor about YOUR parking slot
Wear spandex if you weigh more than Wilford Brimley
Drive close to a bicycle
Cheat at cards
Lie by leaving out important information (obfuscate)
Tell a beggar how not to spend the dollar you just gave him
Be rude to service personnel
Pretend your actions as a fan have the slightest impact on the game
Look down on others less fortunate, less educated, less good looking, less successful
Force your grown children to live by YOUR RULES just because they live with you
Slap or hit your child as a discipline strategy
Order your spouse around (Brag on them. Don’t nag them!)
I am compiling a much longer list but I want to wait until I have more feedback from my degenerate readers before I publish it. I may just turn it into a coffee table book with massive photographs and lurid illustrations. Then I think I’ll lobby to have it included in the NEW and Improved New Testament.
Where was I? Oh yeah. Sin.
When Catholics think about sin they usually drift into all things sexual. Of all the vices, sex is the only one that comes naturally. Gambling, drinking, doing drugs are learned behaviors. But sex is innate.
When I was seven I remember climbing up the pole in the basement and feeling something weird in my groin. It was quite pleasurable so I ran my legs up and down the pole in an effort to stimulate the reaction. My Grandmother came down to check on me as saw me hunching the pole.
“Stop that, Roddy. That’s nasty!”
“What are you talking about, Grandmother? This feels good!” I kept throwing my legs up and down as the sensation intensified.
“Stop it! Stop it! That is nasty, young man. Get down right now,” she said as she stifled a laugh.
That little giggle was a big tell. I began to move faster and faster. Grandmother seemed to come unglued.
“What in the world is the matter with you?” she demanded.
“Nothing. Why are you laughing?”
I wasn’t being snotty. I had no idea what was so funny. And Grandmother could not keep a straight face long enough to get it out.
“You can’t...You can’t...”
“What? I can’t what, Grandmother?”
“You can’t hunch on that pole, Roddy! You are hunching.”
“Is that what I’m doing? Wow. I’ll have to do this more often. It feels awesome.”
Grandmother gave up and went upstairs in a bit of a hurry. After a few minutes my mom yelled down the steps.
“Rod. Stop that right now. Get down from there and never do that again. Do you hear me young man? I said stop it!”
“What? Why?”
Silence.
And thus, my first lesson in human sexuality. Great information told in a direct and healthy manner.
Sin is an idea whose usefulness has passed. I do not say this as someone devoid of morality. I say this as an uncommonly flawed, run of the mill bozo riding the bus to perdition. If I could be Pope for a day, this would be my first edict:
“Pope Rodney of the Poopy Pants has decided that henceforth and forever, Catholics shall strike the phrase “mortal sin” from all subsequent theological intercourse. The phrase “venial sin” shall also be stricken. We shall hereby replace all such references with the following phrases. “Jaw dropping stupidity” will now be the new phrase for mortal sin. And “uncommonly dumb stuff” will be substituted for venial sin.
Pope Rodney also has created a list of formerly sinful acts that will heretofore be considered completely without moral hazard.
Masturbation
Homosexual copulation
Deviant sex acts of any kind between assenting adults
Cussing (Trust me, God doesn’t give a shit.)
Drinking
Teasing a cat
Divorce
Spitting in your sister’s lemonade (okay maybe this is still a sin)
Killing someone will be referred to as jaw dropping stupidity. The consequences of murder purchase enormous grief for the perpetrator. God seldom needs to step in and set the scales straight. The killer almost always ends up miserable. (unless the killee is a scourge on society...like a used car salesman)
Committing adultery is in a category all its own for stupidity. It turns you into a cheater and a liar. One cannot commit adultery without lying or cheating. And life becomes a series of attempts to cover ones mounting shit pile of lies. It is the great treadmill of karma. The faster you run, the faster it catches up with you. And just like George Jetson, you eventually end up flying around the treadmill while Astro and the cat watch with amusement.
If we de-sin-afy ourselves and present sin for what it truly is, we can make great strides toward a more enlightened point of view. Don’t get me wrong. I know that the Catholic leadership will never realize that humor is the most powerful weapon in God’s arsenal. But as a fallen Catholic I reserve the right to suggest common sense improvements in a way that shames these modern day pharisees out of their comfort zones. A practicing Catholic would never be so blunt and straight forward.
Just for balance I will also publish a list of new sins, er, I mean uncommonly dumb stuff.
It will be uncommonly dumb to :
Lay around in a filthy house
Short change a customer or cashier
Give a good waitress a ten percent tip
Drive slow in the fast lane
Harass your neighbor about YOUR parking slot
Wear spandex if you weigh more than Wilford Brimley
Drive close to a bicycle
Cheat at cards
Lie by leaving out important information (obfuscate)
Tell a beggar how not to spend the dollar you just gave him
Be rude to service personnel
Pretend your actions as a fan have the slightest impact on the game
Look down on others less fortunate, less educated, less good looking, less successful
Force your grown children to live by YOUR RULES just because they live with you
Slap or hit your child as a discipline strategy
Order your spouse around (Brag on them. Don’t nag them!)
I am compiling a much longer list but I want to wait until I have more feedback from my degenerate readers before I publish it. I may just turn it into a coffee table book with massive photographs and lurid illustrations. Then I think I’ll lobby to have it included in the NEW and Improved New Testament.
Where was I? Oh yeah. Sin.
When Catholics think about sin they usually drift into all things sexual. Of all the vices, sex is the only one that comes naturally. Gambling, drinking, doing drugs are learned behaviors. But sex is innate.
When I was seven I remember climbing up the pole in the basement and feeling something weird in my groin. It was quite pleasurable so I ran my legs up and down the pole in an effort to stimulate the reaction. My Grandmother came down to check on me as saw me hunching the pole.
“Stop that, Roddy. That’s nasty!”
“What are you talking about, Grandmother? This feels good!” I kept throwing my legs up and down as the sensation intensified.
“Stop it! Stop it! That is nasty, young man. Get down right now,” she said as she stifled a laugh.
That little giggle was a big tell. I began to move faster and faster. Grandmother seemed to come unglued.
“What in the world is the matter with you?” she demanded.
“Nothing. Why are you laughing?”
I wasn’t being snotty. I had no idea what was so funny. And Grandmother could not keep a straight face long enough to get it out.
“You can’t...You can’t...”
“What? I can’t what, Grandmother?”
“You can’t hunch on that pole, Roddy! You are hunching.”
“Is that what I’m doing? Wow. I’ll have to do this more often. It feels awesome.”
Grandmother gave up and went upstairs in a bit of a hurry. After a few minutes my mom yelled down the steps.
“Rod. Stop that right now. Get down from there and never do that again. Do you hear me young man? I said stop it!”
“What? Why?”
Silence.
And thus, my first lesson in human sexuality. Great information told in a direct and healthy manner.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Chapter 2: Sin
I hate to break it to you. If you are Catholic and thought the rules governing sex have evolved, you are just flat wrong. Extramarital sex, divorce and masturbation are still mortal sins. They will still land you in hell unless you confess them in the Sacrament of Penance or make a “perfect” act of contrition. They are still just as grave and mortal as killing, stealing, water boarding and starting a needless war. Okay, I added those last two for political reasons.
Mortal sin is just plain evil. The idea came from John:
If you see your brother or sister committing what is not a mortal sin, you will ask, and God will give you life to such a one - to those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin that is mortal; I do not say you should pray about that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not mortal.
Wow. Either John was not the brightest tool in the shed or the translator was dyslexic. This is typical Bible mumbo jumbo. And it is the foundation upon which the church has built their thesis for mortal and venial sin. Incredible!
So for those of us who like to masturbate (i.e. half the population) life after death is gonna be hot. Same for those of us who have divorced or fooled around or had sex with our high school sweethearts in the back of a ‘62 Malibu with black grillwork and mag wheels. You might think that in today’s enlightened world, there should be some Bishops or Cardinals who are actively seeking to change this silliness. But if they exist, they are doing a good job of keeping their frightened little mouths shut.
The idea that sins like masturbation are just as grave as murder needs a bit of examining. But if your criterion for changing the Church is based on tradition, those idiocies will survive at least another millenium. So you might ask why the Catholic hierarchy is so blind to the practicalities of moral living. You might ask how the people making decisions manage to isolate themselves so effectively from true grace and morality. And you would not be alone in asking those salient questions. But what you must understand about the Catholic leadership is that they have utterly no desire whatever to lead. My guess is that most of them have had illicit sex of one kind or another and are so ashamed of their behavior that they refuse to look at the basis of mortal sin in a critical way. In short, they are afraid to change the underlying principles because they fear losing control of the necessary evolutionary curve.
So those of us who are falling or fallen Catholics are brave enough to admit there are enormous problems. But those of us who are conservative Catholics are too cowardly to allow a logical inquiry. And since it is far easier to constantly purge liberals, the need for real change is moot.
Okay, enough boring philosophical rhetoric. Let’s talk about meat.
I loved Fridays at the Catholic Church. After mass they would have a big fish fry with bingo booths and cake wheels. If it was Friday, it was fish day. And man we really raked in the cash on fish day. The sin of eating meat on Friday was a cause for consuming mass quantities of marine fauna. So you can imagine our surprise when they informed us that it was no longer a sin to eat meat on Friday!
Everybody knows that it used to be a sin...a mortal sin...to each meat on Friday. Not any more. Not only is it not a mortal sin. It isn’t a tiny little venial sin either. In fact, it is no sin at all. So how does such a thing go from sending a soul to hell for eternity to being no problem? Aha! Now you see why conservatives refuse to reform their insipid, arcane rules. When you admit a rule is stupid, you unleash the hounds! Suddenly you are forced to admit to a cornucopia of mindless dictums. And there you have it. The slippery slope! And so as a conservative, you defend every rule with a viciousness heretofore reserved for the lashing of money changers and complex derivative managers. Oops. I dropped my political pants again. Sorry.
I hate to break it to you. If you are Catholic and thought the rules governing sex have evolved, you are just flat wrong. Extramarital sex, divorce and masturbation are still mortal sins. They will still land you in hell unless you confess them in the Sacrament of Penance or make a “perfect” act of contrition. They are still just as grave and mortal as killing, stealing, water boarding and starting a needless war. Okay, I added those last two for political reasons.
Mortal sin is just plain evil. The idea came from John:
If you see your brother or sister committing what is not a mortal sin, you will ask, and God will give you life to such a one - to those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin that is mortal; I do not say you should pray about that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not mortal.
Wow. Either John was not the brightest tool in the shed or the translator was dyslexic. This is typical Bible mumbo jumbo. And it is the foundation upon which the church has built their thesis for mortal and venial sin. Incredible!
So for those of us who like to masturbate (i.e. half the population) life after death is gonna be hot. Same for those of us who have divorced or fooled around or had sex with our high school sweethearts in the back of a ‘62 Malibu with black grillwork and mag wheels. You might think that in today’s enlightened world, there should be some Bishops or Cardinals who are actively seeking to change this silliness. But if they exist, they are doing a good job of keeping their frightened little mouths shut.
The idea that sins like masturbation are just as grave as murder needs a bit of examining. But if your criterion for changing the Church is based on tradition, those idiocies will survive at least another millenium. So you might ask why the Catholic hierarchy is so blind to the practicalities of moral living. You might ask how the people making decisions manage to isolate themselves so effectively from true grace and morality. And you would not be alone in asking those salient questions. But what you must understand about the Catholic leadership is that they have utterly no desire whatever to lead. My guess is that most of them have had illicit sex of one kind or another and are so ashamed of their behavior that they refuse to look at the basis of mortal sin in a critical way. In short, they are afraid to change the underlying principles because they fear losing control of the necessary evolutionary curve.
So those of us who are falling or fallen Catholics are brave enough to admit there are enormous problems. But those of us who are conservative Catholics are too cowardly to allow a logical inquiry. And since it is far easier to constantly purge liberals, the need for real change is moot.
Okay, enough boring philosophical rhetoric. Let’s talk about meat.
I loved Fridays at the Catholic Church. After mass they would have a big fish fry with bingo booths and cake wheels. If it was Friday, it was fish day. And man we really raked in the cash on fish day. The sin of eating meat on Friday was a cause for consuming mass quantities of marine fauna. So you can imagine our surprise when they informed us that it was no longer a sin to eat meat on Friday!
Everybody knows that it used to be a sin...a mortal sin...to each meat on Friday. Not any more. Not only is it not a mortal sin. It isn’t a tiny little venial sin either. In fact, it is no sin at all. So how does such a thing go from sending a soul to hell for eternity to being no problem? Aha! Now you see why conservatives refuse to reform their insipid, arcane rules. When you admit a rule is stupid, you unleash the hounds! Suddenly you are forced to admit to a cornucopia of mindless dictums. And there you have it. The slippery slope! And so as a conservative, you defend every rule with a viciousness heretofore reserved for the lashing of money changers and complex derivative managers. Oops. I dropped my political pants again. Sorry.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Fallen Catholic (continued)
I will take on the Curia in later chapters. But now it is time to move on to the most magical of all the magic in the Catholic church.
Miracles.
As I said before, most people cringe when I equate miracles to magic. They believe I should be educated about the semantic difference. Frankly, there is no difference at all. As a child I was taught the difference. And I never questioned it. Magic was a fake miracle. Talking to the dead, disappearing, bending metal with your mind, all that was fake. Bringing people back from the dead, healing people, making food out of nothing, creating storms, walking on water, that was all real and miraculous. As I grew older and became more inquisitive, it occurred to me that miracles always happened in the distant past on distant lands, before television or film. But the nuns at Saints Simon and Jude made it clear to us that if you prayed a perfect prayer and had a perfect heart, you could get a miracle.
So when my pet chameleon died, I was ready for my own personal miracle. I had cried all morning upon discovering my poor dead lizard. I did not realize that these animals were cold blooded and could not survive next to my bed on a cold night in a small box. Thankfully, I did not make this realization until I was much older. Otherwise my grief would have been compounded by my guilt over the unintentional murder.
When Sammy died, I remember closing his box and opening it again and again, hoping he would be alive again. But each time I reopened the lid, I was met with the sight of his shriveled little body and his faded brown skin. I went to bravely set off to school that morning unable to convince my mother that I needed to stay home and keep vigil. I thought about it all day long and was on the verge of tears but I was determined not to cry in front of my friends. I told my friend Steve, whose parents had taken me to the circus with him. His father bought me the pet, an act my parents found to be needlessly sentimental. My mother avoided pets of all kinds because of the mess they caused. So it was clear to me that if I didn’t take care of Sammy, I would never get another lizard or pet of any kind for that matter. That is probably why it meant so much to me.
And so, after spending the entire day mulling over my options, I decided to pray for a miracle. Sister Cornelia Marie had set out some rules for how to ask such a favor. The circumstances must be dire...life and death. The need must be great. The soul must be pure. The prayer must be perfect. None of the prerequisites gave me any pause whatsoever. I had just been to confession and had been in no moral peril for at least 3 days so I was absolutely sure that my soul was pure. The rest would be obvious to God.
Life and death, check. Urgency, check.
So the only thing left for me to do was to pray the perfect prayer. When I got to Mass that morning I waited until I received Communion and with the host carefully cradled on my tongue I began to pray. I first let Jesus know that my little miracle was a very tiny thing as far as miracles go. So it should be an easy thing for him to do. I also wanted for him to understand that it was absolutely necessary for me to ask for this miracle even though I promised to keep it a secret. I knew if God granted me this miracle all kinds of kids with petty problems would bother Jesus for their own selfish little miracles. So keeping it in the strictest of confidence was part of the quid pro quo.
All in all, I was very careful to be very reverent and very sincere. God knew me. And he knew that I was completely and utterly faithful in every way. I was completely without doubt about all of the salient points. So as I rode home on the school bus that day, I was seized with excitement over my impending miracle. I was completely convinced that I had offered the perfect prayer. Sammy would be alive and happy and I would have the pall of death lifted from my tender psyche. Glory, glory, glory be to God.
However, when I arrived at the my bus stop, ran to my house, bounded up the stairs and threw open Sammy’s box, I was met with a revelation. My reaction was not disappointment. It was anger. As I lifted Sammy’s rigid, blackened body, I immediately looked at God with contempt. If he was so great, how could he reject the perfect prayers of a good kid like me? A very good, very faithful boy like me. How could he pitch me aside like that?
Well one thing was for sure. I wasn’t going to bother asking why. If that’s how he wanted to play it, so what? A lump began to grow in my throat and before long, I was crying and preparing Sammy’s coffin.
Cathe and Tim attended the funeral and made utter fools of themselves by laughing during the interment. Joan was too young to understand the mysteries of death. My friends, Tommy and Bill happened by at the moment I began raking in the dirt. They insisted that I exhume the corpse for a viewing and I obliged. Then we all sang a verse of “The Worms Crawl in,” and my suffocating grief suddenly seemed to evaporate.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Why We Exist
I am here for one and only one reason. I am here to make your life easier. That is it. That is all.
The measure of a man is not what he does for himself but what he does for others. If you think you are here to earn heaven you will never earn it. Heaven is a selfish goal for frightened, selfish people. Heaven, like immortality, is a myth. It is ultimately the most selfish reason to live.
Once you realize you are not here for yourself, you are free to live the life that was your destiny all along. But it is not possible to live a selfless existence without surrendering immortality.
So I beg you. Strive not for wealth or fame or heaven. Strive only for peace and kindness.
For you can only save yourself by saving others.
The measure of a man is not what he does for himself but what he does for others. If you think you are here to earn heaven you will never earn it. Heaven is a selfish goal for frightened, selfish people. Heaven, like immortality, is a myth. It is ultimately the most selfish reason to live.
Once you realize you are not here for yourself, you are free to live the life that was your destiny all along. But it is not possible to live a selfless existence without surrendering immortality.
So I beg you. Strive not for wealth or fame or heaven. Strive only for peace and kindness.
For you can only save yourself by saving others.
Rod Thompson 10/16/12
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Fallen Catholics (continued)
By the way, Catholics use Communion as a way to shame people. In the old days, we knew that if you had a mortal sin on your soul, you dare not go to Communion. It was the moral equivalent of shitting in the pool and asking Jesus to go for a swim. Every Catholic knew, you had to have a clean soul to get Communion. That meant that if you could not go to Communion, you would have to sit out the ceremony. So while everybody else was making their way to the altar for some Jesus bread, you sat in the pew and watched everyone climb around you and over you. And as they wiggled past, you could almost hear what they were thinking. “Sinful bastard. He needs to get control of himself.”
This was something you wanted to avoid at all cost. So you made sure you got to confession on Friday so that you could look down on the sinners as you climbed over them on Sunday. No other religious denomination uses Communion in this way. Guilt, with Catholics is inexorably tied to what Jesus meant to be a celebration of his relationship with the human race. The very thing Catholics are most proud of is a cudgel for self-righteousness.
Which brings us to the most magical nonsense in all of Christianity.
Sex.
To a Catholic, sex is supposed to be sacred. It is supposed to be between a man and a woman and it is supposed to be magical and spiritual. It is also supposed to be performed purely and exclusively for reproductive purposes. Anyone who has sex outside of marriage is committing a mortal sin. A mortal sin sends you to hell. Do not pass go etc. I suppose if the Pope could have written a book on sex, it would read something like this:
In order to have pure and blessed copulation with your wife, you must remain fully clothed. You must not look at each other in a lustful way. You must turn off the lights and pray for guidance from God. You must kiss and hug and make the sign of the cross and then you may proceed to second base. Under no circumstances are you to proceed to second base until you have kissed reverently and without passion. You must remove only enough clothes to make copulation successful. You may use holy oil to lubricate the blessed labia and then you may slowly present St Peter to the Basilica. Try not to wiggle around too much while copulating. Do not make unseemly animal noises. Let nature take its course and then clean up the mess with wet naps.
Since nobody can imagine God in the act of schtupping the blessed Virgin Mary, the Church leadership made it possible for us to ignore that bit of nastiness by inventing the Immaculate Conception. This is undeniably one of the most popular kinds of magic in the religious world. Before Mary, there were virgin births in Greek and Roman mythology. As we all know, these magic ideas are the result of our cultural shame surrounding the sex act. Okay, maybe not all of us know this. But the smart ones do........ or should I say the honest ones?
Any way you look at it, sex is a nasty business. It is base and crude and deliciously primitive. It is an act completely devoid of pretentiousness. And it is as natural as breathing. I am not going to get into all the particulars here. But the sort of sex allowable in the Catholic Church is perversely unnatural. In fact, the Church would rather not talk about sex at all. But if you press the most conservative elements of any Christian sect, you will almost always find an unhealthy view of sexuality which borders on the perverse. And of all those perverse ideas, I believe celibacy to be the most perverse. It is a classic example of the corrupting influence of the backward thinking Neanderthals who have occupied the office of the Curia for centuries.
By the way, Catholics use Communion as a way to shame people. In the old days, we knew that if you had a mortal sin on your soul, you dare not go to Communion. It was the moral equivalent of shitting in the pool and asking Jesus to go for a swim. Every Catholic knew, you had to have a clean soul to get Communion. That meant that if you could not go to Communion, you would have to sit out the ceremony. So while everybody else was making their way to the altar for some Jesus bread, you sat in the pew and watched everyone climb around you and over you. And as they wiggled past, you could almost hear what they were thinking. “Sinful bastard. He needs to get control of himself.”
This was something you wanted to avoid at all cost. So you made sure you got to confession on Friday so that you could look down on the sinners as you climbed over them on Sunday. No other religious denomination uses Communion in this way. Guilt, with Catholics is inexorably tied to what Jesus meant to be a celebration of his relationship with the human race. The very thing Catholics are most proud of is a cudgel for self-righteousness.
Which brings us to the most magical nonsense in all of Christianity.
Sex.
To a Catholic, sex is supposed to be sacred. It is supposed to be between a man and a woman and it is supposed to be magical and spiritual. It is also supposed to be performed purely and exclusively for reproductive purposes. Anyone who has sex outside of marriage is committing a mortal sin. A mortal sin sends you to hell. Do not pass go etc. I suppose if the Pope could have written a book on sex, it would read something like this:
In order to have pure and blessed copulation with your wife, you must remain fully clothed. You must not look at each other in a lustful way. You must turn off the lights and pray for guidance from God. You must kiss and hug and make the sign of the cross and then you may proceed to second base. Under no circumstances are you to proceed to second base until you have kissed reverently and without passion. You must remove only enough clothes to make copulation successful. You may use holy oil to lubricate the blessed labia and then you may slowly present St Peter to the Basilica. Try not to wiggle around too much while copulating. Do not make unseemly animal noises. Let nature take its course and then clean up the mess with wet naps.
Since nobody can imagine God in the act of schtupping the blessed Virgin Mary, the Church leadership made it possible for us to ignore that bit of nastiness by inventing the Immaculate Conception. This is undeniably one of the most popular kinds of magic in the religious world. Before Mary, there were virgin births in Greek and Roman mythology. As we all know, these magic ideas are the result of our cultural shame surrounding the sex act. Okay, maybe not all of us know this. But the smart ones do........ or should I say the honest ones?
Any way you look at it, sex is a nasty business. It is base and crude and deliciously primitive. It is an act completely devoid of pretentiousness. And it is as natural as breathing. I am not going to get into all the particulars here. But the sort of sex allowable in the Catholic Church is perversely unnatural. In fact, the Church would rather not talk about sex at all. But if you press the most conservative elements of any Christian sect, you will almost always find an unhealthy view of sexuality which borders on the perverse. And of all those perverse ideas, I believe celibacy to be the most perverse. It is a classic example of the corrupting influence of the backward thinking Neanderthals who have occupied the office of the Curia for centuries.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Fallen Catholic (continued)
My Grandmother used to make me kneel down on her hardwood floor in her bedroom to say the rosary. She must’ve had me pegged for a real hard case. Grandmother was the most saintly woman you ever met. Not the pain in the ass, holier than thou kind. A really good person loved by everybody who knew her. It always amazed me that the most decent sweet woman I knew was so afraid of going to Purgatory that she made a habit of praying the whole rosary at least once a week.
The Rosary is a long string of prayers rattled of by rote while keeping count on beads. There are three basic prayers. The “Our Father,” the “Hail Mary” and the “Glory Be.” Any of these prayers is sufficiently long by itself. But when you say a Rosary, you better make sure you have a lot of time and lots of callouses on your knees. It’s over 50 “Hail Marys”and a pile of the other prayers. If you want to know the details just google, “How to Pray the Rosary.” Even now they promise special spiritual benefits for droning out these prayers. Stunning that people in this day and age still do this. I have no idea why God would want us to bore him with prayers like this over and over and over and over again. I can only guess that there must be a lot of obsessive compulsive Catholics.
Anyway, this is a good example of the kind of magic that breaks you out of Purgatory. Going to Mass every Friday for a year is a big special deal. Or it used to be when I was a kid. They had one called a Plenary Indulgence. That was a string of things you do that takes a long time to do. And if you do all of the prayers and things on the list, you are guaranteed a place in heaven. Pass go, collect two hundred dollars and wowwy wow wow, you just hit the jackpot. Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t wanna say that the folks who came up with these rules are morons. Oh, wait a minute. I was wrong. Yes. Yes, I do want to say the people who came up with these rules are morons. This is the stupidest thing I ever heard of. And any Catholic over 50 will tell you it’s true. Not only that, but in the Middle Ages, you could buy...that’s right... BUY indulgences. Stunning isn’t it?
Oh and here’s the kicker. A few years ago they decided that the whole idea of Purgatory was false. “Okay all you sinners. You can leave now. Purgatory is closing. You can go on to heaven. Everybody but this guy. You go to hell. Just kidding. Sorry about the burns. Last one out turn off the lights will ya? Anybody want the sign?”
Somehow I can imagine Jesus smacking himself in the forehead when he heard about it. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Of all the magic acts in the Catholic Church, the very best was the magic of Communion. You are gonna slap me and call me a liar. But get this. In the Catholic Church, to this day, the wafer thin bread that is used as the host is actually and undeniably turned into the actual body and blood of Jesus H. Christ. It is not a representation or a commemoration of Christ. It is the real, actual, body and blood of Jesus only it still looks, smells and tastes like bread. It really is. No shit. Grown adults discuss this as if there was something philosophically relevant. They give it a fancy name; transubstantiation. Here is a brief excerpt from Wiki on the subject:
The earliest known use of the term "transubstantiation" to describe the change from bread and wine to body and blood of Christ that was believed to occur in the Eucharist was by Hildebert de Lavardin, Archbishop of Tours (died 1133), in the eleventh century and by the end of the twelfth century the term was in widespread use.[5] TheFourth Council of the Lateran, which convened beginning November 11, 1215,[6] spoke of the bread and wine as "transubstantiated" into the body and blood of Christ: "His body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine, the bread and wine having been transubstantiated, by God's power, into his body and blood".[7]
My utter belief in this doctrine and my subsequent salvation from childhood brainwashing has tainted my judgement of all things Catholic. I strongly believe that the above mentioned Arch Bishop of Tours should be burned in effigy for this blatantly idiotic idea. Yet millions of Catholics worldwide defend it. If you polled Catholics on what they actually think about this, my guess is that you would find a large minority who find it to be problematic. I’m being generous here.
So the moment of transubstantiation is the central focus of the Mass. Nothing is more important to the Mass than the climax of the big show. And this is definitely the climax.
As a child, I used to stare up at the host as it was hoisted above all and marvel at how it glowed. I was convinced that when I got my first Communion that I would experience a heavenly transformation. I had dreams about the event in anticipation. Finally, when the magic day finally came halfway through the second grade, I was shaking with excitement. I was worried that I would somehow bite down, accidentally on Jesus. I remembered the advice given me by Sister Cornelia Marie to leave it on my tongue until it dissolved enough to swallow. But when the ecstatic moment came, alas, there were no Angels or horns or tinkling bells or delicious flavor. In fact, the dry little wafer immediately stuck to the roof of my mouth prompting me to claw at it desperately with my tongue. I began to panic as my efforts proved fruitless. My meditation on holy thoughts was completely overshadowed by my increasingly futile efforts to swallow our Lord and Savior. All I could think about was how stupid I had been.
Knowing that it was a mortal sin to touch it, I looked around to see if anybody else was struggling with the mechanics. It seemed to me that most of the other kids were praying reverently with their eyes closed. I peeked at Sister Cornelia Maria and realized she was in line to get served. So I went for it. I bent my head down and hid my hands and pulled the bread off the roof on my mouth using my fingernail. Then I immediately looked around to see if I had escaped being caught. My heart raced as I imagined being hoisted by my hair and thrown out of church. But nothing happened. The bread got stuck again at the back of my throat but after repeatedly gulping, I was able to send Jesus to his resting place in my gut.
My Grandmother used to make me kneel down on her hardwood floor in her bedroom to say the rosary. She must’ve had me pegged for a real hard case. Grandmother was the most saintly woman you ever met. Not the pain in the ass, holier than thou kind. A really good person loved by everybody who knew her. It always amazed me that the most decent sweet woman I knew was so afraid of going to Purgatory that she made a habit of praying the whole rosary at least once a week.
The Rosary is a long string of prayers rattled of by rote while keeping count on beads. There are three basic prayers. The “Our Father,” the “Hail Mary” and the “Glory Be.” Any of these prayers is sufficiently long by itself. But when you say a Rosary, you better make sure you have a lot of time and lots of callouses on your knees. It’s over 50 “Hail Marys”and a pile of the other prayers. If you want to know the details just google, “How to Pray the Rosary.” Even now they promise special spiritual benefits for droning out these prayers. Stunning that people in this day and age still do this. I have no idea why God would want us to bore him with prayers like this over and over and over and over again. I can only guess that there must be a lot of obsessive compulsive Catholics.
Anyway, this is a good example of the kind of magic that breaks you out of Purgatory. Going to Mass every Friday for a year is a big special deal. Or it used to be when I was a kid. They had one called a Plenary Indulgence. That was a string of things you do that takes a long time to do. And if you do all of the prayers and things on the list, you are guaranteed a place in heaven. Pass go, collect two hundred dollars and wowwy wow wow, you just hit the jackpot. Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t wanna say that the folks who came up with these rules are morons. Oh, wait a minute. I was wrong. Yes. Yes, I do want to say the people who came up with these rules are morons. This is the stupidest thing I ever heard of. And any Catholic over 50 will tell you it’s true. Not only that, but in the Middle Ages, you could buy...that’s right... BUY indulgences. Stunning isn’t it?
Oh and here’s the kicker. A few years ago they decided that the whole idea of Purgatory was false. “Okay all you sinners. You can leave now. Purgatory is closing. You can go on to heaven. Everybody but this guy. You go to hell. Just kidding. Sorry about the burns. Last one out turn off the lights will ya? Anybody want the sign?”
Somehow I can imagine Jesus smacking himself in the forehead when he heard about it. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Of all the magic acts in the Catholic Church, the very best was the magic of Communion. You are gonna slap me and call me a liar. But get this. In the Catholic Church, to this day, the wafer thin bread that is used as the host is actually and undeniably turned into the actual body and blood of Jesus H. Christ. It is not a representation or a commemoration of Christ. It is the real, actual, body and blood of Jesus only it still looks, smells and tastes like bread. It really is. No shit. Grown adults discuss this as if there was something philosophically relevant. They give it a fancy name; transubstantiation. Here is a brief excerpt from Wiki on the subject:
The earliest known use of the term "transubstantiation" to describe the change from bread and wine to body and blood of Christ that was believed to occur in the Eucharist was by Hildebert de Lavardin, Archbishop of Tours (died 1133), in the eleventh century and by the end of the twelfth century the term was in widespread use.[5] TheFourth Council of the Lateran, which convened beginning November 11, 1215,[6] spoke of the bread and wine as "transubstantiated" into the body and blood of Christ: "His body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine, the bread and wine having been transubstantiated, by God's power, into his body and blood".[7]
My utter belief in this doctrine and my subsequent salvation from childhood brainwashing has tainted my judgement of all things Catholic. I strongly believe that the above mentioned Arch Bishop of Tours should be burned in effigy for this blatantly idiotic idea. Yet millions of Catholics worldwide defend it. If you polled Catholics on what they actually think about this, my guess is that you would find a large minority who find it to be problematic. I’m being generous here.
So the moment of transubstantiation is the central focus of the Mass. Nothing is more important to the Mass than the climax of the big show. And this is definitely the climax.
As a child, I used to stare up at the host as it was hoisted above all and marvel at how it glowed. I was convinced that when I got my first Communion that I would experience a heavenly transformation. I had dreams about the event in anticipation. Finally, when the magic day finally came halfway through the second grade, I was shaking with excitement. I was worried that I would somehow bite down, accidentally on Jesus. I remembered the advice given me by Sister Cornelia Marie to leave it on my tongue until it dissolved enough to swallow. But when the ecstatic moment came, alas, there were no Angels or horns or tinkling bells or delicious flavor. In fact, the dry little wafer immediately stuck to the roof of my mouth prompting me to claw at it desperately with my tongue. I began to panic as my efforts proved fruitless. My meditation on holy thoughts was completely overshadowed by my increasingly futile efforts to swallow our Lord and Savior. All I could think about was how stupid I had been.
Knowing that it was a mortal sin to touch it, I looked around to see if anybody else was struggling with the mechanics. It seemed to me that most of the other kids were praying reverently with their eyes closed. I peeked at Sister Cornelia Maria and realized she was in line to get served. So I went for it. I bent my head down and hid my hands and pulled the bread off the roof on my mouth using my fingernail. Then I immediately looked around to see if I had escaped being caught. My heart raced as I imagined being hoisted by my hair and thrown out of church. But nothing happened. The bread got stuck again at the back of my throat but after repeatedly gulping, I was able to send Jesus to his resting place in my gut.
Friday, October 19, 2012
Fallen Catholic (continued)
Stuff like that bothered me all the time. I thought if I could just become a priest when I grew up everything would be easy. I would be loved by all, especially my Mom and Grandmother. So I started practicing the rituals of the Mass in my bedroom at home. My sister and I would set up a table and put a sheet across it so that it looked like an altar. Then we would run downstairs and grab the coffee pot, (It looked like a chalice to us.) a couple of orange juice glasses and some Ritz crackers. I draped a beach towel over my shoulders to resemble vestments and it was show time. I was the priest and Cathe was the altar boy. Cathe wanted to take turns doing this but I explained how wrong that would be what with all the rules about women in the Church. She could only be a nun and we could stretch the rules to let her play an altar boy but there were certain things you just better not do. Letting a girl play a priest was just too much.
We would practice for a while, arguing about each little detail. Did he genuflect here or did he just bow? Did the altar boy ring the bells three times or just once? We would go through each motion trying our best to remember the Latin.
“Domini no nabisco!” I would open my hands and say.
“Et come speery too too oh!” Cathe would respond.
“Oreomus,” I rejoined.
The Latin reminded us of cookies and before too long we were eating the Ritz crackers instead of consecrating them to be the body and blood of Jesus.
Playing Mass was not as boring as going to Mass but it could only keep us occupied for a few minutes. Then we would transform the altar into a space capsule and we were off to the moon where we would bounce on the beds to simulate low gravity.
Cathe was a good big sister but I could only stand to be around girls for a few hours before I felt a need to wrestle with somebody. We would part company as soon as the doorbell rang. It was usually Doug Draper or Tommy Kerr.
My best friend was Doug Draper. He was my big brother. Doug was smart. He was a couple of years older than me and a much nicer person. But he was a Protestant. The nuns had warned us about having Protestant friends. The nuns would have advised me to be best friends with Ronnie Metzgar. He was a good Catholic. But Ronnie was my age and Doug was older and wiser. For some strange reason, Ronnie and I were never close buddies. When I think about him, I remember what a nice guy he was, how he gave me one of his twinkies at lunch just about every day. He was smaller than me but a lot tougher. I started a fight with him one day and he hit me about a dozen times before I took him down on the ground. We wallowed around for a few minutes before my sisters pulled us apart. I was ashamed of myself. The very next day, Ronnie gave me a twinkie out of his lunch.
Doug Draper was tall and tough. We use to fight occasionally. But Doug never hit me. He would hold me down until I gave out. No matter how hard I fought, he always won. An hour later we would be playing together again as if nothing happened.
Doug taught me how to play “hotbox.” If you only have three guys, hotbox is the next best thing to playing baseball. Tommy and Bill Kerr would play with us. If you ever watched a runner trapped between bases, you know what a hot box is. The two base players try to tag the runner out as he runs back and forth between the bases. In baseball, this seldom happens because the base player can get off the base and chase the runner. But in hot box, you have to stay at your base. We used to play for hours, keeping score of the runs. There was always the chance you were gonna get beaned as you ran back and forth but somehow we avoided that.
Doug treated me like a little brother. Once he made me eat a cucumber because “it’s good for you.” We seldom talked about religion but I occasionally tried to get him to admit that Catholicism was the one true religion. Doug would always get a big laugh at that. I didn’t understand why it was funny. I had no idea what he did in his church. Doug told me it was just one big long sermon. I couldn’t imagine that. The sermon was the shortest part of the Catholic service. Sitting through an hour without getting up and kneeling down and singing and rattling off Latin seemed impossible to me. So when he asked me to go to church with him, I told him it would be a sin. I thought sure it was. But Sister Cornelia Marie later told me it was okay. Mom didn’t agree. It may not be a sin but there were certain things called “imperfections” that could keep you in Purgatory an extra couple of days.
Purgatory was the magic washing machine of retribution. You couldn’t go to heaven with any sins on your soul and the only way to get them off was to burn them in the cleansing fire. So Purgatory was just like Hell only temporary. Scary. You could skip Purgatory if you had just been to confession the minute before you died. So I made sure I was never more than a week away from my last confession. At the age of six I was capable of some really horrible sins. Not doing my homework and lying to my Mom about it was at the top of the list.
I often disobeyed Mom if I thought nobody was watching. She had a hard fast rule about eating anything off the floor. One day I found a piece of chocolate candy between the couch cushions. Just as I popped it into my mouth, I heard her warn me not to eat it in that familiar tone. I notice a slightly stale flavor as it hit my tongue but I went ahead and bit down and slurped it around in my mouth. Suddenly an alarm went off in my head. The sweet taste of chocolate was missing and in its place was a rank, sour, smelly, putrefied stench filling my oral and nasal passages. I began to scream as I ran from the room, frantically searching for Mom. I began to gag and retch as I clawed at my tongue, trying to remove the candy. But it was pretty well slathered all over my mouth by the time I realized my mistake.
Mom rushed into the room. She led me to the sink and helped me rinse my tongue and mouth. I continued to gag and retch as she tried to wipe my mouth with a rag.
“What in the world did you eat?” she demanded.
“It was a piece of candy,” I cried.
“That wasn’t candy, Rod. Where did you find it?” By now she was less angry and beginning to smile. This confounded me. Why would my Mother smile at the prospect of her favorite son being poisoned?
“I found it in the couch cushion. The big green couch. It was a Hershey kiss.” I pointed toward the living room. Mom began to laugh.
“What?” I didn’t see anything funny about this horrible accident.
“The green couch? Did you say the green couch?”
“Yes. Yes.” I was back to crying again. This was strange behavior for my mother. What could be causing her to laugh? And by now she was trying to stifle the laughter. I thought she was going to lay down on the floor and roll around. She was snorting with laughter. She finally managed to squeeze out a few words.
“The couch I used this morning to change Joan’s diaper? That green couch?” At this point, she double over and held her sides. My sister Cathe came into the kitchen and wanted to know what was so funny. But Mom couldn’t answer. She was crying now and whimpering as she tried to explain what had happened. Suddenly, I realized what had happened.
“Oh no!” I said, and now there came a flood of tears.
Cathe was laughing already but had no clue what was funny. It was common for Mom to lose control of herself while laughing. She regularly peed in her pants when something really funny happened.
“What’s so funny?” Cathe begged to be let in on the joke.
Mom tried to respond, “Roddy ate....Roddy ate.....Roddy ate....”
But that was all she could say. Then she darted into the bathroom. We could hear her laughing through the door.
“What? Cathe put her ear to the bathroom door. “What did he eat?”
“Don’t tell her, Mom!” I yelled through the door. My fear had been channeled directly into anger and I walked to the sink, turned on the water, washed out my mouth and ran outside. As I mounted my bike, I could hear Cathe and Mom laughing. I drove off to Doug’s house and never looked back.
Eating shit is not exactly a sin. But Mom reminded me that if I had obeyed her, my gastrous disaster would never have happened. It was a stain I could not wait to get off of my soul.
But I digress. I was talking about Purgatory and magic. There was a piece of magic that could keep you out of Purgatory. It was a thing called an Indulgence. An Indulgence was a “get out of Purgatory free” pass. You earned them by saying prayers, mostly the rosary.
Stuff like that bothered me all the time. I thought if I could just become a priest when I grew up everything would be easy. I would be loved by all, especially my Mom and Grandmother. So I started practicing the rituals of the Mass in my bedroom at home. My sister and I would set up a table and put a sheet across it so that it looked like an altar. Then we would run downstairs and grab the coffee pot, (It looked like a chalice to us.) a couple of orange juice glasses and some Ritz crackers. I draped a beach towel over my shoulders to resemble vestments and it was show time. I was the priest and Cathe was the altar boy. Cathe wanted to take turns doing this but I explained how wrong that would be what with all the rules about women in the Church. She could only be a nun and we could stretch the rules to let her play an altar boy but there were certain things you just better not do. Letting a girl play a priest was just too much.
We would practice for a while, arguing about each little detail. Did he genuflect here or did he just bow? Did the altar boy ring the bells three times or just once? We would go through each motion trying our best to remember the Latin.
“Domini no nabisco!” I would open my hands and say.
“Et come speery too too oh!” Cathe would respond.
“Oreomus,” I rejoined.
The Latin reminded us of cookies and before too long we were eating the Ritz crackers instead of consecrating them to be the body and blood of Jesus.
Playing Mass was not as boring as going to Mass but it could only keep us occupied for a few minutes. Then we would transform the altar into a space capsule and we were off to the moon where we would bounce on the beds to simulate low gravity.
Cathe was a good big sister but I could only stand to be around girls for a few hours before I felt a need to wrestle with somebody. We would part company as soon as the doorbell rang. It was usually Doug Draper or Tommy Kerr.
My best friend was Doug Draper. He was my big brother. Doug was smart. He was a couple of years older than me and a much nicer person. But he was a Protestant. The nuns had warned us about having Protestant friends. The nuns would have advised me to be best friends with Ronnie Metzgar. He was a good Catholic. But Ronnie was my age and Doug was older and wiser. For some strange reason, Ronnie and I were never close buddies. When I think about him, I remember what a nice guy he was, how he gave me one of his twinkies at lunch just about every day. He was smaller than me but a lot tougher. I started a fight with him one day and he hit me about a dozen times before I took him down on the ground. We wallowed around for a few minutes before my sisters pulled us apart. I was ashamed of myself. The very next day, Ronnie gave me a twinkie out of his lunch.
Doug Draper was tall and tough. We use to fight occasionally. But Doug never hit me. He would hold me down until I gave out. No matter how hard I fought, he always won. An hour later we would be playing together again as if nothing happened.
Doug taught me how to play “hotbox.” If you only have three guys, hotbox is the next best thing to playing baseball. Tommy and Bill Kerr would play with us. If you ever watched a runner trapped between bases, you know what a hot box is. The two base players try to tag the runner out as he runs back and forth between the bases. In baseball, this seldom happens because the base player can get off the base and chase the runner. But in hot box, you have to stay at your base. We used to play for hours, keeping score of the runs. There was always the chance you were gonna get beaned as you ran back and forth but somehow we avoided that.
Doug treated me like a little brother. Once he made me eat a cucumber because “it’s good for you.” We seldom talked about religion but I occasionally tried to get him to admit that Catholicism was the one true religion. Doug would always get a big laugh at that. I didn’t understand why it was funny. I had no idea what he did in his church. Doug told me it was just one big long sermon. I couldn’t imagine that. The sermon was the shortest part of the Catholic service. Sitting through an hour without getting up and kneeling down and singing and rattling off Latin seemed impossible to me. So when he asked me to go to church with him, I told him it would be a sin. I thought sure it was. But Sister Cornelia Marie later told me it was okay. Mom didn’t agree. It may not be a sin but there were certain things called “imperfections” that could keep you in Purgatory an extra couple of days.
Purgatory was the magic washing machine of retribution. You couldn’t go to heaven with any sins on your soul and the only way to get them off was to burn them in the cleansing fire. So Purgatory was just like Hell only temporary. Scary. You could skip Purgatory if you had just been to confession the minute before you died. So I made sure I was never more than a week away from my last confession. At the age of six I was capable of some really horrible sins. Not doing my homework and lying to my Mom about it was at the top of the list.
I often disobeyed Mom if I thought nobody was watching. She had a hard fast rule about eating anything off the floor. One day I found a piece of chocolate candy between the couch cushions. Just as I popped it into my mouth, I heard her warn me not to eat it in that familiar tone. I notice a slightly stale flavor as it hit my tongue but I went ahead and bit down and slurped it around in my mouth. Suddenly an alarm went off in my head. The sweet taste of chocolate was missing and in its place was a rank, sour, smelly, putrefied stench filling my oral and nasal passages. I began to scream as I ran from the room, frantically searching for Mom. I began to gag and retch as I clawed at my tongue, trying to remove the candy. But it was pretty well slathered all over my mouth by the time I realized my mistake.
Mom rushed into the room. She led me to the sink and helped me rinse my tongue and mouth. I continued to gag and retch as she tried to wipe my mouth with a rag.
“What in the world did you eat?” she demanded.
“It was a piece of candy,” I cried.
“That wasn’t candy, Rod. Where did you find it?” By now she was less angry and beginning to smile. This confounded me. Why would my Mother smile at the prospect of her favorite son being poisoned?
“I found it in the couch cushion. The big green couch. It was a Hershey kiss.” I pointed toward the living room. Mom began to laugh.
“What?” I didn’t see anything funny about this horrible accident.
“The green couch? Did you say the green couch?”
“Yes. Yes.” I was back to crying again. This was strange behavior for my mother. What could be causing her to laugh? And by now she was trying to stifle the laughter. I thought she was going to lay down on the floor and roll around. She was snorting with laughter. She finally managed to squeeze out a few words.
“The couch I used this morning to change Joan’s diaper? That green couch?” At this point, she double over and held her sides. My sister Cathe came into the kitchen and wanted to know what was so funny. But Mom couldn’t answer. She was crying now and whimpering as she tried to explain what had happened. Suddenly, I realized what had happened.
“Oh no!” I said, and now there came a flood of tears.
Cathe was laughing already but had no clue what was funny. It was common for Mom to lose control of herself while laughing. She regularly peed in her pants when something really funny happened.
“What’s so funny?” Cathe begged to be let in on the joke.
Mom tried to respond, “Roddy ate....Roddy ate.....Roddy ate....”
But that was all she could say. Then she darted into the bathroom. We could hear her laughing through the door.
“What? Cathe put her ear to the bathroom door. “What did he eat?”
“Don’t tell her, Mom!” I yelled through the door. My fear had been channeled directly into anger and I walked to the sink, turned on the water, washed out my mouth and ran outside. As I mounted my bike, I could hear Cathe and Mom laughing. I drove off to Doug’s house and never looked back.
Eating shit is not exactly a sin. But Mom reminded me that if I had obeyed her, my gastrous disaster would never have happened. It was a stain I could not wait to get off of my soul.
But I digress. I was talking about Purgatory and magic. There was a piece of magic that could keep you out of Purgatory. It was a thing called an Indulgence. An Indulgence was a “get out of Purgatory free” pass. You earned them by saying prayers, mostly the rosary.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Fallen Catholic (continued)
In those days there was no daylight between my religious life and my real life. I somehow knew that Santa Claus and Disney were fake magic but I did not want to test those boundaries. So I bought into the Catholic way and had no problem memorizing the catechism power points.
“What is a Sacrament?
A Sacrament is an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace.”
Magic was fun but religion was serious stuff. The nuns, the priests, my mom, my dad, all the adults in my life conspired to make my spiritual path unambiguous. It was a great foundation of half truths and lies. It was certainty. It did not matter that it wasn’t true. It gave me an easy to follow life assignment, just like school. Do your homework and pay attention and all is good. Don’t eat meat on Friday. Don’t murder anybody. Go to church on Sunday. Don’t covet my neighbor’s wife. Easy. Oh yeah, don’t cuss. Not so easy. But I was sure you could not go to hell for cussing unless you said the “G” word and the “D” word together. Which was easy. Oh yeah, don’t steal. As if!
Even though I hated to go to Mass on Sunday, I loved to go to this thursday thing called Novena. They sang some really cool songs in that show. And the best thing of all was that gold smoking thing that they slung around the room. Man that smelled like heaven. I was told that it was frankinsteins, or frank incest, or something like that. It was like two gold bowls clapped together on a long chain. The priest would pull the two little bowls apart and sprinkle some kind of magic dust in there and the whole thing would start smoking like crazy. Then he would run around the church clanging it and shaking it at every statue as if to say, “Take a whiff of this!” So incredibly cool!
And those statues! Talk about magic! I was convinced that the Saints were inside those statues staring out at me through the eyes. That’s why the statue of Jesus on the cross was so hard to look at. I was afraid to look at the bloody nail in Christ’s feet because I knew he was watching me. It just seemed rude to gawk at the gnarly stuff. But man, it was hard not to stare especially on those rare occasions when I was allowed to get close. So if I was alone, I took my time drinking in the gore, ruminating on my horrible sins, the lies and fights with my brothers and sisters. Yep. Jesus was unbelievable. And he did it all without crying even a little. Man.
It was during one of these scary moments of solitude at the feet of Jesus that I recalled the story of a thing called stigmata told to us by our second grade nun.
Before I get into the actual legend of the stigmata, I want to mention what a wonderful bunch of teachers I had at Sts. Simon and Jude Elementary School in Louisville. These ladies were absolutely the sweetest people you would ever want to meet. I was taken aback as I grew up to hear the horror stories other Catholics told about nuns. I became best friends with most of my teachers at St. Simon. This was particularly true of my second grade nun, Sister Cornelia Marie. I was just crazy about her. She was young and wore those round frameless glasses and she smelled so wonderful and smiled so beautifully. I figured they gave nuns great perfume because they were so holy. I later realized it was Ivory Soap.
Like all second graders, I was told never to touch a nun because they were holy and our filthy sinful hands would defile them. I believed that, too, until Sister Cornelia Marie gave me a big hug one day...not one of those arm over shoulder jobs, but a real honest to goodness bear hug like my mother gave me. It came as a shock to me but I drank it in like a teenager enjoying his first kiss. I can still remember her rosary jangling as she bent down and again as she straightened herself. Then I remember turning bright red as I felt the eyes of my classmates boring down on me.
After that, I stayed as close to Sister Cornelia Marie as I could get. I was a good pet.
Okay, the stigmata. Sister Cornelia Marie was a great story teller. She would pull the shades on our classroom and turn out the large overhead neons and walk around the room while she spun her tales. They were always stories with an obvious moral lesson, a lesson designed to make us better Catholics and therefore better people. But as she told us about the stigmata, the wounds manifested on true believers, I was struck with how horrible it was to be close to God.
A person who displayed the stigmata had the wounds from crucifixion. Their hands and feet would bleed as if the nails had penetrated them. And Sister Cornelia Marie talked about it as if it were a great honor. All I could think was that I hoped God never loved me enough to bestow that prize on me.
Of all the stories about God, this one bothered me the most because it occurred to me for the first time that maybe God was mean. Maybe God was really a jerk and we were fools for worshipping him. I remember chasing that thought out of my head, worried that God would hear me and strike me dead right there in my desk.
He didn’t.
Still I was sure I had just committed a horrible mortal sin and that I had to go to confession because if I died without confessing I would go straight to hell. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.
So I worried myself sick until I could get to the confessional. Then, once I finally knelt down and the red light went on, I panicked. How the hell was I gonna confess that? Wouldn’t the priest jerk me out of the confessional by my ear and beat me to within an inch of my miserable blasphemous life? I quickly made up some easy sins, dumped them on the priest and flew out of the confessional. I ran halfway home before I slowed to catch my breath. Now what? I not only committed a mortal sin, but I lied about it by not confessing it. I was going to hell twice. Do not pass go...etc. Jesus H. Christ!
The taint from this sin was never erased. I carried it with me like a ball and chain for the rest of my childhood. Thankfully, as the memory faded, so did the guilt. But shortly after my run in with the stigmata, I witnessed a real tragedy and got my first glimpse of mortality.
Anita Wilson (not her real name) was killed while crossing the street that year. She was a nice girl. A pretty girl. She sat a row to my left and 4 seats ahead of me. She had beautiful eyes and big full lips. She didn’t smile much. We all went to her funeral and walked up to her casket and looked at her lying there with a bluish bruise on her forehead. She wore her first Communion dress. The parents cried a lot more than we did. We knew it was a sad thing but she was not a close friend to me.
I was able to look at the whole thing in a detached way. I just could not imagine her in heaven. All I could think about were the details of her interment. What was it like closed in the casket? Was it hard to breathe? Within a few nights, the nightmares began. I talked to my friends about Anita, but I never admitted to the bad dreams. I didn’t grieve for Anita. I was too scared for myself to think about her. Death always frightened me. And I never trusted the nuns to tell me the truth about death. I just could not swallow the idea of heaven. At the age of seven, I had already started down the path to damnation. I was terribly afraid of the doubts that constantly crept into my mind after Anita’s death. But like a good Catholic, I brushed them aside with a few fervent prayers.
Sister Cornelia Marie gave us a little talk about heaven the next day. It helped to think about Anita playing with her new friends in heaven. This beautiful woman wept as she talked about the angels and Jesus and all of the little children who had died. She talked about how lucky they were to be with God. Every nun kept an arsenal of tissue under her habit. And Sister Cornelia had to reach for one after another as she went on with her story. Seeing her cry like that made me love her even more. To this day, she is my favorite teacher of all time.
A few years later we went to the downtown library to see a film about a little boy who died before he was old enough to go to school. It was a Christmas story titled, “The Littlest Angel,” narrated by Loretta Young. There is a point in that movie when the little boy gives his humble gift to the Christ child. It is a box full of his favorite things...the feathers from a robin’s nest, a set of jacks, some marbles and a sling shot. When the Christ child sees this gift he prizes it above all the other expensive things offered to him. Every year I read this story to my girls. And every year I get too choked up to finish it. It truly is magic.
In those days there was no daylight between my religious life and my real life. I somehow knew that Santa Claus and Disney were fake magic but I did not want to test those boundaries. So I bought into the Catholic way and had no problem memorizing the catechism power points.
“What is a Sacrament?
A Sacrament is an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace.”
Magic was fun but religion was serious stuff. The nuns, the priests, my mom, my dad, all the adults in my life conspired to make my spiritual path unambiguous. It was a great foundation of half truths and lies. It was certainty. It did not matter that it wasn’t true. It gave me an easy to follow life assignment, just like school. Do your homework and pay attention and all is good. Don’t eat meat on Friday. Don’t murder anybody. Go to church on Sunday. Don’t covet my neighbor’s wife. Easy. Oh yeah, don’t cuss. Not so easy. But I was sure you could not go to hell for cussing unless you said the “G” word and the “D” word together. Which was easy. Oh yeah, don’t steal. As if!
Even though I hated to go to Mass on Sunday, I loved to go to this thursday thing called Novena. They sang some really cool songs in that show. And the best thing of all was that gold smoking thing that they slung around the room. Man that smelled like heaven. I was told that it was frankinsteins, or frank incest, or something like that. It was like two gold bowls clapped together on a long chain. The priest would pull the two little bowls apart and sprinkle some kind of magic dust in there and the whole thing would start smoking like crazy. Then he would run around the church clanging it and shaking it at every statue as if to say, “Take a whiff of this!” So incredibly cool!
And those statues! Talk about magic! I was convinced that the Saints were inside those statues staring out at me through the eyes. That’s why the statue of Jesus on the cross was so hard to look at. I was afraid to look at the bloody nail in Christ’s feet because I knew he was watching me. It just seemed rude to gawk at the gnarly stuff. But man, it was hard not to stare especially on those rare occasions when I was allowed to get close. So if I was alone, I took my time drinking in the gore, ruminating on my horrible sins, the lies and fights with my brothers and sisters. Yep. Jesus was unbelievable. And he did it all without crying even a little. Man.
It was during one of these scary moments of solitude at the feet of Jesus that I recalled the story of a thing called stigmata told to us by our second grade nun.
Before I get into the actual legend of the stigmata, I want to mention what a wonderful bunch of teachers I had at Sts. Simon and Jude Elementary School in Louisville. These ladies were absolutely the sweetest people you would ever want to meet. I was taken aback as I grew up to hear the horror stories other Catholics told about nuns. I became best friends with most of my teachers at St. Simon. This was particularly true of my second grade nun, Sister Cornelia Marie. I was just crazy about her. She was young and wore those round frameless glasses and she smelled so wonderful and smiled so beautifully. I figured they gave nuns great perfume because they were so holy. I later realized it was Ivory Soap.
Like all second graders, I was told never to touch a nun because they were holy and our filthy sinful hands would defile them. I believed that, too, until Sister Cornelia Marie gave me a big hug one day...not one of those arm over shoulder jobs, but a real honest to goodness bear hug like my mother gave me. It came as a shock to me but I drank it in like a teenager enjoying his first kiss. I can still remember her rosary jangling as she bent down and again as she straightened herself. Then I remember turning bright red as I felt the eyes of my classmates boring down on me.
After that, I stayed as close to Sister Cornelia Marie as I could get. I was a good pet.
Okay, the stigmata. Sister Cornelia Marie was a great story teller. She would pull the shades on our classroom and turn out the large overhead neons and walk around the room while she spun her tales. They were always stories with an obvious moral lesson, a lesson designed to make us better Catholics and therefore better people. But as she told us about the stigmata, the wounds manifested on true believers, I was struck with how horrible it was to be close to God.
A person who displayed the stigmata had the wounds from crucifixion. Their hands and feet would bleed as if the nails had penetrated them. And Sister Cornelia Marie talked about it as if it were a great honor. All I could think was that I hoped God never loved me enough to bestow that prize on me.
Of all the stories about God, this one bothered me the most because it occurred to me for the first time that maybe God was mean. Maybe God was really a jerk and we were fools for worshipping him. I remember chasing that thought out of my head, worried that God would hear me and strike me dead right there in my desk.
He didn’t.
Still I was sure I had just committed a horrible mortal sin and that I had to go to confession because if I died without confessing I would go straight to hell. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.
So I worried myself sick until I could get to the confessional. Then, once I finally knelt down and the red light went on, I panicked. How the hell was I gonna confess that? Wouldn’t the priest jerk me out of the confessional by my ear and beat me to within an inch of my miserable blasphemous life? I quickly made up some easy sins, dumped them on the priest and flew out of the confessional. I ran halfway home before I slowed to catch my breath. Now what? I not only committed a mortal sin, but I lied about it by not confessing it. I was going to hell twice. Do not pass go...etc. Jesus H. Christ!
The taint from this sin was never erased. I carried it with me like a ball and chain for the rest of my childhood. Thankfully, as the memory faded, so did the guilt. But shortly after my run in with the stigmata, I witnessed a real tragedy and got my first glimpse of mortality.
Anita Wilson (not her real name) was killed while crossing the street that year. She was a nice girl. A pretty girl. She sat a row to my left and 4 seats ahead of me. She had beautiful eyes and big full lips. She didn’t smile much. We all went to her funeral and walked up to her casket and looked at her lying there with a bluish bruise on her forehead. She wore her first Communion dress. The parents cried a lot more than we did. We knew it was a sad thing but she was not a close friend to me.
I was able to look at the whole thing in a detached way. I just could not imagine her in heaven. All I could think about were the details of her interment. What was it like closed in the casket? Was it hard to breathe? Within a few nights, the nightmares began. I talked to my friends about Anita, but I never admitted to the bad dreams. I didn’t grieve for Anita. I was too scared for myself to think about her. Death always frightened me. And I never trusted the nuns to tell me the truth about death. I just could not swallow the idea of heaven. At the age of seven, I had already started down the path to damnation. I was terribly afraid of the doubts that constantly crept into my mind after Anita’s death. But like a good Catholic, I brushed them aside with a few fervent prayers.
Sister Cornelia Marie gave us a little talk about heaven the next day. It helped to think about Anita playing with her new friends in heaven. This beautiful woman wept as she talked about the angels and Jesus and all of the little children who had died. She talked about how lucky they were to be with God. Every nun kept an arsenal of tissue under her habit. And Sister Cornelia had to reach for one after another as she went on with her story. Seeing her cry like that made me love her even more. To this day, she is my favorite teacher of all time.
A few years later we went to the downtown library to see a film about a little boy who died before he was old enough to go to school. It was a Christmas story titled, “The Littlest Angel,” narrated by Loretta Young. There is a point in that movie when the little boy gives his humble gift to the Christ child. It is a box full of his favorite things...the feathers from a robin’s nest, a set of jacks, some marbles and a sling shot. When the Christ child sees this gift he prizes it above all the other expensive things offered to him. Every year I read this story to my girls. And every year I get too choked up to finish it. It truly is magic.
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