tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75674242880529482592024-03-12T21:24:53.808-05:00In Dodd We TrustMichael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.comBlogger3693125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-37098325788312008532016-10-07T19:30:00.001-05:002016-10-07T19:30:50.372-05:00A postscript: Wacky in WhoVille<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ibi7eWE5kyw/V_g9Mnqat7I/AAAAAAAASFY/C_qNO_EGlBQKI6pWPArsFYtieqjAW9XFgCLcB/s1600/41sPf2B3QgL._SX326_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ibi7eWE5kyw/V_g9Mnqat7I/AAAAAAAASFY/C_qNO_EGlBQKI6pWPArsFYtieqjAW9XFgCLcB/s200/41sPf2B3QgL._SX326_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="131" /></a><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Just wanted to drop a line -- several lines -- to advise those who still check in on the blog from time to time that the third (and, most likely, last) volume of the Tales from the Queer Studies Program, <b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Wacky-WhoVille-Queer-Studies-Program/dp/153914142X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1475886051&sr=8-2&keywords=wacky+in+whoville" target="_blank">Wacky in WhoVille</a></b>, is now available in print and in Kindle format from Amazon. Just click on the title in the previous line to find the page for the print edition, from which you can get to the Kindle edition as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"A fraternity in trouble, a historical play, stolen documents, the ghost
of Abraham Lincoln and the irrepressible Bobby Dunn add to Professor
Damien F. Malachy’s problems at Philip Peabody Horton University in this
third installment of tales from the Queer Studies Program. A quirky
story about a university for misfits and other queer things in the
Midwest."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">When I was keeping the blog regularly, I reported from time to time on my progress with this book. It is finally done!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Meanwhile, just to update: Tom and I are fine, the cats are fine and I am pondering a project for National Novel Writing Month in November.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Yikes! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And I hope all of you are well and happy. I continue to visit other blogs to keep up with folks. </span>Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-50227931851335282612016-06-22T04:30:00.000-05:002016-06-22T04:30:16.664-05:00The End<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As I announced <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">on June 7</span></span>, it was <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">m<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">y intention to end </span></span>this blog when it passed 200,000 page views. This is a <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">purely arbitrary line in the ink, but <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">there is a certain logic to it</span></span>. The time has now come to go. I thank those who have passed this way<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> over the past decade.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">T</span>hings in my own life have developed in such a way that I have decided to turn my time and energies to other things. Other responsibilities beckon, other adventures await. It has been a pleasure to keep this blog. No doubt it will be a pleasure to move on, although I will miss this and you.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">kind souls</span> have asked me<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, via comments <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and</span> personal emails, to continue the blog i<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">n some occasional form<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. I am flattered and moved by the things they<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> sai<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">d. And I am tempted to respond positively to <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">such </span>requests. On the other hand, I have been blogging for <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a dozen </span>years now.<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> At one poi<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">nt, I was keeping four blogs going at<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> the same time, each from a different pers<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">pective. <i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In Dodd We Trust</span></i></span></span></span></span> is in its tenth year. On this blog alone, I have posted <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">almost</span> 4,000 entries. Altogether I estimate I have <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">written</span> well over 5,000 entries<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> as a blogger, while also publishing <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">six bo<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">oks<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">,</span> a number of articles a<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">nd</span> doing free-lance editing and translation work. Oh, ye<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ah, most of th<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">at time I had a <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">full time job, too. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">my </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Spanish-speaking friends would say, </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"¡Basta ya!" </span></i></b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Enough already<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">!</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I will not take the blog down for some time, if ever. (I regret <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">removing</span> my earliest blog, <i>Damien's Spot</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, </span>in particular.<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I know that the internet is supposed to be forever, but I don't know where in the internet to find it.)</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Perhaps <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">this iteration of my blogging efforts </span>will remain for someone to stumble upon someday,<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">an<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">d it will</span></span> flash briefly again into life, to perplex <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">or to amuse for a moment<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. So be it.</span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In a week or so, I will disable c<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">omments. <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Those already posted will remain.</span></span></span></span></span></span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">t </span>is not winter here in the northern hemisphere, just turning summer in fact<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I intend to draw no comparison to <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the classic <i>Calvin and Hobbes</i>. But I like the way that strip ended: </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">May all be well with you. May you be happy and at peace. May your friends <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">b</span>e many, your joys lasting and your sufferings fleeting. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">May you be light in darkness.</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span>And may you continue exploring <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">your world which is new every day. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Verily.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And goodbye. </span>Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-49101805127554536262016-06-21T09:56:00.000-05:002016-06-21T09:56:00.216-05:00Today and tomorrow<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Tomorrow I will post my farewell to this blog.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Today I want to provide links to a few of the blogs that I have been following. If you are unfamiliar with them, you may want to check them out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://disasterfilm.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Going Gent<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ly</span></a> </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://ishouldbelaughing.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">I Should Be Laughing </a></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://mitchellismoving.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Mitchell Is Moving </a></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://sporeflections.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Spo-Reflections </a></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://sunnysez.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Sunny Says</a></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://closetprofessor.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">The Closet Professor</a></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I visit other blogs with some regularity, but I wanted to mention these in particular for those who might be looking for something to read once <i>In Dodd We Trust </i>disappears. I have enjoyed them, each in its own way, and <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">encourage</span> you to discover their possibilities.</span><b> </b>Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-53110189472454764692016-06-21T04:30:00.000-05:002016-06-21T04:30:04.769-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-50038044682753502272016-06-20T09:37:00.001-05:002016-06-20T09:39:03.229-05:00Fishing for something to do?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My good friend Steve used to go fishing a lot when we were in high school and college. Out on the edge of town, there was a smallish private lake to which he had access, and he would gather his gear, go out there and spend hours alone. Occasionally he brought one or two fish home, but usually not.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He confessed to me that he often didn't bother to bait his hook. He was a thoughtful sort of person -- went on to do quite well in the academic sphere, Fullbright Scholar and all that -- and he had discovered that if he just sat around thinking, people came up with things for him to do. On the other hand, if he was fishing, they left him alone. So he threw the line in the water, sat back and pondered. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Or just sat back.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am not much of a fisher, but I thought today about adapting Steve's strategy. It feels like a day for sitting on the balcony and doing nothing. But I know that Tom is likely to wonder what is up and, if he does not find something for me to do, might get concerned. So I am going to take my old Nook, turn it on, open up a book I haven't finished reading and sit with it out on the balcony in the fresh air. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Just sit.</span>Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-1502353098019590632016-06-20T08:30:00.000-05:002016-06-20T08:30:07.785-05:00Summer light<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The name <b><i>Litha </i></b>for the summer solstice celebration is apparently not well-attested, although some say it derives from Saxon traditions. At any rate, may the Light of Lights be yours this day, and may the light within you shine on all around you. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For those of you in the southern hemisphere, may the Light of Lights shine in your hearts as well, and may you be light and warmth in the time of Yule.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I confess to being confused by this being called both mid-summer and the beginning of summer. But a foolish consistency robs life of its mystery and fun. </span></div>
Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-57745960998659073802016-06-20T04:30:00.000-05:002016-06-20T04:30:17.175-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-83157163844290691892016-06-19T21:19:00.003-05:002016-06-19T21:19:54.428-05:00Sunday summary<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KVWlAiqDMGY/V2dNE66Nk7I/AAAAAAAASDc/I1R06QVU8xM-6SeGF1e0sRkgYFe7wpPfACLcB/s1600/th.jpe" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="146" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KVWlAiqDMGY/V2dNE66Nk7I/AAAAAAAASDc/I1R06QVU8xM-6SeGF1e0sRkgYFe7wpPfACLcB/s200/th.jpe" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I hope you had a pleasant Sunday. We were looking for something low-key to do, and I suggested we go to the farmer's market on the Capitol Square. The one on Saturday mornings, the Dane County market, is the largest in the state and some say in the country. About 15,000 people show up on the Square and I have read that it can be almost impossible to push your way through the crowds to get near the vendors. The Sunday market is the Madison one and we figured it would be less chaotic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Well, <i>der</i>. Less chaotic and low-key hardly describe what we found. The market opens at eight. When we got there about eight thirty, there were four vendors set up and no others on the horizon. We looked around, walked through the Capitol building, almost empty that early on a Sunday, then wandered around the square and adjacent neighborhoods for a while.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We decided to head to the west side of town, which we used to visit a lot when we lived in the Dells but hardly see at all these days. Of course, nothing was open except for a couple of stores. I offered to get Tom a cup of coffee, but he wasn't interested. After perusing things there, we decided to head back home, stopping at Woodman's so Tom could get sushi for lunch and I could lay in breakfast supplies.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I had a light lunch -- veggie straws and spicy guacamole -- on the balcony while Tom ate his sushi inside. Although it got quite warm this afternoon, at midday the balcony is in the shade and a pleasant breeze combined with low humidity to make it very pleasant. A brief nap follow by a cup of coffee and then off to the treadmill, where I spent over an hour exercising and watching the first couple of episodes of Neil deGrasse Tyson's <i>Cosmos</i>. The apartment complex pool was filled with people today, lots of families with children. It was a good day for it, sunny and hot at mid-afternoon.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">After dinner we watched the finale of <i>Vicious </i>on PBS and then walked to Kwik Trip to get an ice cream and to use the ATM. It was a pleasant evening for the mile-and-a-half walk there and back, warm but not humid. The sun was still above the horizon in the west and the full moon was visible in the east. Lots of our neighbors were out for a stroll, too.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">After taking care of cat duties -- cleaning litter boxes, washing plates, handing out a few treats -- I took a lime Perrier out to the balcony and sat to watch the fading sunlight. A couple walked by on the sidewalk, pushing a stroller. Fireflies flitted about over the grass. I called Tom to come see them, the first ones we have seen this year. It was a lovely end to a pretty uneventful day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And now to bed.</span>Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-91439372377320851232016-06-19T09:30:00.000-05:002016-06-19T09:30:00.167-05:00Happy Father's Day ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">to all fathers and stepfathers and foster fathers and father figures and ...</span></div>
Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-77126299372341873122016-06-19T04:30:00.000-05:002016-06-19T04:30:13.706-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-74389093743406678362016-06-18T12:00:00.000-05:002016-06-18T12:00:09.241-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-21498731630657192772016-06-18T09:46:00.000-05:002016-06-18T09:46:00.147-05:00Sampler: Whoville<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The <i>Who<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">V</span>ille </i>stories began on a whim when I lived in Chicago. There are two volumes at the moment: the rather hefty <i>Wicca in WhoVille</i>, which began its life as a National Novel Writing Month project and the much smaller <i>Wickedness in WhoVille</i>, which contains the first WhoVille story I wrote (a novella, actually) and another story from my Chicago days that I adapted slightly to fit it into the WhoVille universe. A third book, <i>Wacky in WhoVille</i>, is still in the works.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The WhoVille stories are totally unlike my Carmelite books. They are whimsical, silly, light. The protagonist, one Damien F. Malachy, is a professor in the Queer Studies Department at a university for misfits, located outside the Windy City. His husband (partner in the early versions) is a retired lawyer and like, another couple we could mention, they share an apartment with two cats.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I offer for your perusal passages from the published works. First a bit from the original novella, "A Hot Time in WhoVille Tonight;" then a section of "The Honorian Patriarch," a short story published with the novella in <i>Wickedness in WhoVille</i>; and finally a bit from <i>Wicca in WhoVille</i>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That's another of Tom's cover designs. Sorry, folks! That good-looking guy is as unreal as the stories. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">--------------------------</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">from "A Hot Time"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Every morning I walk to work along the tree-lined
boulevard of University Road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is in many ways part of a typical
Midwestern college town, but there are differences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of University Park or College Park or some variation on an overused
theme, the neighborhood is known as WhoVille.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Our metropolitan area is notorious for these little neighborhood names –
Boystown, Girlstown, Millville,
Lakeside. WhoVille fits right in. And instead of
Greek Row, the two-block stretch of fraternity houses is called Geek Row.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nothing is quite usual.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">The university where I teach is officially Philip Peabody
Horton University,
a private institution of higher learning established by an enormous bequest from
Philip Peabody Horton himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except
for his name, there was nothing particularly impressive about Mr. Horton as far
as I know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had made an unseemly
amount of money in the early nineteenth century by selling cemetery plots door
to door.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having no social life -- no
private life, for that matter – he had put his takings away into a small
family-owned bank where a genius of investments, with the aid supposedly of the
slave and rum trades, made sure that the interest accumulated and accumulated,
until one day Philip Peabody woke up a very rich man through no fault of his
own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having dealt in death most of his
life, he realized that there was no point in trying to take it with him, and he
had made no headway in generating friends or family to inherit when he passed
on to one of the finest cemetery plots in the neighboring large city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He set up a trust, therefore, for the
establishment of a college, which would bear his name and educate misfits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All its students were given a full
scholarship, but they first must have been refused admittance everywhere else
they applied and had to be certifiably antisocial. There was an AntiSocial
Certification Process, overseen by the Dean of AntiSocial Studies. You can
imagine the sort of campus life this engendered.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Still, antisocial types often include some fairly
bright people, and a number of the Horton alumni went on to make unmentionable
fortunes of their own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since they, like
the original Founder, had no friends or families, they tended to bestow money
on the PP pot, as it was sometimes called.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The school was rolling in cash by the beginning of the third millennium
in fair Verona, Illinois where we set our scene.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">The over-endowed college eventually begat enough
programs and fellowships to become a university.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Philip
Peabody Horton
University by now was
known just as Horton
University.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1956, at an otherwise forgettable rugby
match, the visiting team began to shout and jeer, “Horton U, P-H-U, Pee-you,
Who are You?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As luck would have it,
some of the Horton students in an elementary teachers reading class had been
examining the Dr. Seuss book, <i>Horton Hears a Who.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their perverse little minds took up the
challenge: “We’re H-U Whos, That’s Who” and the Who soon was the unofficial
mascot of the school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prior to this the
school sports mascot had been a Ho-Chunk chief with an appropriately antisocial
scowl highlighted by war paint. Although this predated concerns about political
correctness by decades, the mascot’s feathered headdress and war paint were
officially retired in 1960, and an elephant costume replaced them. Of course,
Horton was an elephant, not a Who, but a foolish consistency and all that.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">With the arrival of <i>How the Grinch Stole Christmas</i>
a few years later and further popularization of the Whos down in WhoVille, the
University leaped aboard the Grinch-wagon and in 1963 created a combination
Winter-Festival-<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">cum-</span>Mardi-Gras-<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">cum</span> Mummers event called “A Hot Time
in WhoVille Tonight”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a Cindy
Lou Who beauty contest, a roast-beast chili cook off and nonstop fraternity
keggers. For reasons known to God alone, the event was a big financial success
and got many a young Who U student through the cold dark days of midwinter that
year and thereafter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also contributed
to the Scrooge McDuck-like coffers of Horton.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I personally did not believe the rumors that three-hundred-and-fifty
pound President St. John St. Clare Samiam begins each day with a skinny-dip in
the money bins, but then that is an image I do not want in my head anyway.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">--------------------------------</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">from "The Honorian Patriarch"</span></span></div>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">George King woke with a hangover and the phone buzzing
in his ear like an angry rattlesnake. He kicked at Jackson to get the phone, which was on that
side of the bed, but Jackson
was not there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was out jogging as
usual in the early morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>George
belched, tasted sour mango and grimaced<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">“Okay,
George. No more fruity drinks, no matter how cute the fruit mixing them.”</span></i><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">By the time he groped his way through tangled sheets
to the phone, it had stopped buzzing and the flashing blue light alerted him to
a message<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. “1 missed call 9:03 AM”</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He pushed the call-back button.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Who the hell is
calling at 9:03 AM on
Sunday, for God’s sake?”</i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">“Mr. George Basilarion?” a hesitant voice asked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">It had been five years since anyone had called him
that. George’s mumble was apparently affirmative enough. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">The voice continued, “Your Holiness, it is with
profound sorrow that I tell you that His Holiness, Patriarch Honorius,
Twenty-third of the blessed name, Episkopos Apostolicos of the One Church of
the One God, One Son and One Will, has passed into the glory of the One Kingdom
he has so long desired, ahead of all human expectation, but in accord with the
One All-Knowing and All-Merciful Will of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Patriarch is dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Long live
the Patriarch, Your Holiness.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Silence.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">George’s mind blurred even more. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">No</i>,” he
thought, “ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that can’t be right</i>.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Images flashed through his vodka-fogged mind: plumes
of incense, dots of candlelight reflecting off black satin robes, tall veiled
hats, chains dangling jeweled crosses and enameled images of the Virgin, gold
staff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">“Now that’s drag!” he had once announced to his
aunt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Patriarcha was famously not
amused.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">George King, 23 and gay, was called Peach by his
friends because he had been born in Buford,
Georgia, when
his mother unexpectedly went into labor while on the way to Florida to visit Epcot Center.
He competed in drag contests as Miss Peachy Keene, twirling the fire baton,
which he considered a lost art.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the
real world he was a clerk at a vintage/used clothing store called “Been There,
Worn That” on Clark Street
on the border of Boystown and Girlstown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The store had originally been called “OUT-Worn”, but that soon described
how people felt about the place, so the owners, vegetarian Orthodox<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>lesbians, changed it.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">George’s real family name was Basilarion, but he
anglicized it when he hit 18. His slender build, olive skin, hazel eyes, full
lips, lean face and scruffy beard got him attention in the bars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had a nervous tic of running his fingers
through his short, thick, curls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
smoked constantly, his fingers stained from the tobacco.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">He was also the unlikely nephew of the Honorian
Patriarch, an anomaly he either hid or used as a pickup line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one even knew what he meant, most of the
time – “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hi, I’m George.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My uncle is the Honorian Patriarch.</i>”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It didn’t matter that they didn’t
understand. For a couple of years before he met Jackson, it usually got him at least a second
look, sometimes a drink and a chance to hook up.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">The last time George had attended the Sacred Liturgy
was at Easter, and he did so only because he chanced to stagger by the tiny
Cathedral on his way home from a champagne brunch in Boystown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brunch was perhaps the wrong word – it was
actually an exceptionally late Saturday supper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His uncle-the-Honorian-Patriarch, surrounded by lesser luminaries
adorned as seraphim or cherubim, had calmly ignored him, although the
Patriarcha had glared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had been
saddled with the disturbing name of Livia by her own bishop-father, and she
cultivated that deadly empress’s least charming characteristics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jackson
adored and fawned over her because he knew it drove both George and Livia mad.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">After another moment of silence, the voice on the
phone explained what had happened, but George couldn’t make sense of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Patiently the messenger repeated the
story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His version sounded like a press
release.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">What had actually happened, as George was to learn later,
was this: The Patriarch (Honorius<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>XXIII)
and his son, Athanasius, who should have succeeded him, had died in an
automobile explosion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first it was
reported as an assassination, and this was the version that George received on
the initial call. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Careful polices
investigation,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>however, indicated that
Athanasius had flipped a lit Havana cigar – a gift from the mayor –<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>out of the window,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and it rolled into a drain filled with sewer
gas, setting off the blast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was at
the corner of Michigan
and Van Buren.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Patriarch’s gold
chain flew through the air and landed on the outstretched arm of one of the
horse-mounted-Indian statues that<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>faced
one another across the street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
sirens were whining before the chain stopped spinning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Two blocks away, crowds of children playing in the
fountain at Millennium Park looked up to see the fire reflected in the giant
jellybean sculpture (which the creator insisted<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>on calling “Cloud Gate,” a name no one else used), bursting into cheers
and applause at the spectacle, thinking it was a movie or a fireworks
exhibition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Parents scurried into the
fountain, ignoring for once their fine shoes and slacks, scooping up their
babies and heading for shelter under the aluminum waves of the Frank
Gehry-designed performance space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
car had passed the Park moments before, the stout chauffeur hidden behind his
sunglasses, the enormous Patriarch munching on a square of pastry layers filled
with honey, nuts and soaked in orange liqueur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was the Patriarch’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>complaints
that his son’s cigar smoke was spoiling the taste of the sweet that led to the
disaster.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">“Oh. Thank you, ” George said, reflexively polite and
completely inappropriate. He hung up and fell back onto the pillows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What a weird
dream!”</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">The phone rang again in two minutes, but this time he
buried his head under the covers and ignored it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wasn’t falling for that again.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">--------------------------</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"> from <i>Wicca in WhoVille</i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
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</i></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Overture</b></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The tall,
white-haired man stepped out of the shadow of a yew tree and strode to the
center of a clearing. He wore a purple tunic, speckled with gold, which ended
slightly above his ankles, over a white linen under-tunic that reached to the
ground.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A simple gold band encircled his
head, and a crescent hung from it over his brow.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The grass in
the clearing was beaten down in a circle. Faint smudges of white chalk marked
out four points around its circumference. Crossing his hands over his chest,
the man bowed to each point of the circle, turning clockwise as he did so. Then
he lifted his hands and eyes to the partially clouded sky and began to sing
softly:</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Bhrid, ar goroi, an-gheal Bheanrion;</span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>
</i></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lo de thoil e beannachta sinn.</span></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>
</i></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Is sinn bhur leanai, is tu ar mamai</span></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>
</i></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bi ag isteacht duinn mar sin.</span></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>
</i></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Is tu an coire, anois inar doire;</span></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>
</i></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Bhean-domhan tinfim orainn.</span></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>
</i></span>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A thine ghra, a thine bheatha;</span></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lo de thoil e ag teacht Bhrid duinn!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<br /></div>
</i></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the
darkness of the trees behind him, a woman in a dark robe pulled her hood closer
around her face and peered out at him. Flicking open her cell phone, she tapped
a recording app and held the phone towards the chanting voice. Later back in
her office, she would try to decide what language he was using. Meanwhile the
important thing was to capture as much of it as she could. A cool wind sprang
up, and more thick clouds slid across the sky to hide the stars. She pulled the
robe tighter and shivered. Rain had been in the forecast. She hoped she was
safely back home before it began.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">+</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Dang it all
to heck!” he shouted, the heavy Bible slipping from his hands to the floor. He
bent over to pick it up. “I have to learn how to hold this thing in one hand
and not drop it when I point with the other!”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Rusty Piper
got a firmer grasp on the Corinthian leather cover, opened the book to the
passage he had marked and let the sides flop back and down over his strong left
hand. His eyes ran down the column until he found the verses he wanted.
Planting his feet firmly on the ground, he jabbed at the book with his right
forefinger and kept it there, preventing the book from sliding away again.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Brothers and
sisters, it says right here, right here in God’s holy word, I tell you! It says
right here in Exodus chapter 22 verse three that a man has a right to defend
his property even if it means killing someone. The Lord’s own words to Moses,
‘If a thief is caught breaking in at night and is struck a fatal blow, the
defender is not guilty of bloodshed.’ No, wait, that’s verse 2. Verse three
says … ‘but if it happens after sunrise, the defender is guilty of bloodshed.’
Well, I don’t need to read verse 3, it would just confuse people. That verse
two, that’s the verse. That’s clear as can be.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">His eyes
scanned the rest of the page to see if there was anything else he might want to
talk about. “Something about sorcerers, something about bestiality, something
about not charging interest on a loan… What, no interest on a loan? Well, that
sure ain’t true any longer! Thank God we don’t keep the foolish parts of the
Old Testament any more. Just the parts that make good Christian sense.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Rusty sat down
and reached for the beer on his desk, his damp t-shirt molding to strong chest
muscles. </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Bible sure was easy to
misunderstand</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, he thought. He was glad he was helping people find the truth
and not get confused by side issues. He took a sip from the beer, clicked on
the television and picked up a five-pound hand weight from the floor. With one
hand he surfed through the channels while he lifted the weight to his shoulder
over and over.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Outside the
wind had picked up and a few drops of rain struck the windows.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">+</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There was not
enough light in the kitchen to see what she was doing, but the Lady preferred
to do things by candlelight anyway. She lit a rose-colored taper and put it
into a small holder made of topaz. Walking across the flagstone floor, she
reached up to open a cabinet door. Inside the shelves were lined with bottles,
each bearing a neat label in beautiful calligraphy script. Unerringly she
reached for the two she needed. Uncorking the bottles, she scooped out first a
small handful of coarse salt and then a bit of minced garlic. She replaced the
corks and put the bottles back in place before closing the door. She closed her
eyes for a moment and held her hands over the salt and garlic. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">She reached
for the basalt metate she used for grinding herbs, spices and other things she
needed. Some of her friends thought the metate an affectation, suggesting that
a mortar and pestle were more appropriate. But she liked the idea that the
metate was a New World artifact, and since she was now in the New World, she
would use the metate.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">She put the
salt and garlic into a small pile in the center of the metate and rolled the
ball-shaped grinding stone back and forth, blending them together. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As she worked,
she sang softly under her breath,</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 45.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Salt and
garlic, garlic and salt,</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 45.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With your
strength all evil halt.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 45.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Strong and
powerful, guard this hall,</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 45.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Keep safe
within it one and all.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">She stopped
blending and set the mixture aside to dry near the hearth. She would have
preferred to let it dry in the sun, but the sun had disappeared hours ago and
rain was beating down on the roof. The warmth from the small fire burning on
the kitchen hearth was sufficient for the task.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Later she
would walk through the old house and sprinkle a pinch on every window sill,
doorway, hearth and any other openings she could find.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Smiling to
herself, she said aloud, “So I ask and make my plea, All you gods, So mote it
be.”</span></div>
<i>
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Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-40790833688537001322016-06-18T08:30:00.000-05:002016-06-18T08:30:52.322-05:00Picnic in the park<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Today we head to the Dells to join a group of friends for a cookout in Bowman Park downtown. Tom used to do the grilling for this annual event, but this year someone else stepped up to do the honors. Tom plans to help out, though. After enjoying the Market Street Diner's fish fry last night, we picked up an assortment of cookies from their bakery to contribute to the cause today.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This will be my second trip to the Dells this week, Tom's third. He goes on Tuesdays and Thursdays to do volunteer work at the little railroad. I don't get up there at all regularly. I went on Wednesday to take a former co-worker out to lunch and to have coffee with a neighbor who lived across Berry Road from us. I also ran by the library to check in and to congratulate one of the librarians on her upcoming retirement at the end of the summer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The weather looks promising for today -- sunny and hot, but we will be in the shade of a pavilion and staying hydrated.</span>Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-50694083451042914652016-06-18T04:30:00.000-05:002016-06-18T04:30:33.043-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-29584851361309847782016-06-17T07:12:00.000-05:002016-06-17T07:12:15.801-05:00Do the healthy thing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n_EmEH9PeH0/V2PoZog8l_I/AAAAAAAASBc/pGNbFJV2ZmQwsANapmDLMWBILo54dDGhgCLcB/s1600/th.jpe" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n_EmEH9PeH0/V2PoZog8l_I/AAAAAAAASBc/pGNbFJV2ZmQwsANapmDLMWBILo54dDGhgCLcB/s200/th.jpe" width="152" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Yesterday in our neighborhood was cloudy, breezy, cool. It barely got up to 70 degrees [21.1 C] and my energy level was low. Tom was at the railroad and the cats were dozing. Some of my lack of energy, perhaps most of it, was residual depression over Orlando and feelings that the tragedy dredged up. (I have noticed in the past that each new grief resurrects old ones not fully grieved.) Part of it was the result of having had lunch the day before with a friend who is failing more noticeably each time I see her. Part of it was the weather, no doubt.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I ran some errands in the morning, but I didn't feel like doing anything but sitting around. I certainly did not feel like doing any exercise. I considered options -- weights at the athletic club, a long walk around the neighborhood, the treadmill or a dip in the apartment complex swimming pool -- and discarded them all. One part of my brain told me it would be healthy and probably relieve the depression a bit, but another, louder and more persistent part of my brain stuck its fingers in its ears and went, "La, la, la, la, la! I can't <i><b>hear </b></i>you!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">After lunch I went to Starbucks and then picked up a few things from Target. When I got home it was almost two, and I decided there was -- and <b><i>it</i></b> was -- time to go walk on the treadmill before Tom got home. The <i><b>la-la-la-la</b></i> part of my brain kicked in, but this time I ignored it. I changed, went up to the fitness center -- which I had all to myself -- and walked on the treadmill while watching a documentary about the ancient Sumerians. </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Side note: Documentaries about ancient empires, while fascinating, can summon unsettling comparisons to not-so-ancient empires, if you catch my meaning, if you get my drift.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">After an hour on the treadmill and a good shower, I felt much better. My mood had lifted and I found myself easily making healthy food choices at and after dinner. I went to bed and slept well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It helps when I do the healthy things.</span>Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-73679047335871080032016-06-17T04:30:00.001-05:002016-06-17T04:30:02.617-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-37794703300127923162016-06-16T18:46:00.001-05:002016-06-16T18:46:06.272-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-21881916058497577102016-06-16T06:41:00.000-05:002016-06-16T06:41:36.321-05:00Sampler: Elijah and the Ravens of Carith<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sIBv_yugn2Q/V1l6G15zE-I/AAAAAAAAR70/ZCVHy7xAHtYN59xWRNS8BRRB3UWIwuwygCLcB/s1600/ELIJAH_BookCover5_25X8_BW_130%2Bcopy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sIBv_yugn2Q/V1l6G15zE-I/AAAAAAAAR70/ZCVHy7xAHtYN59xWRNS8BRRB3UWIwuwygCLcB/s200/ELIJAH_BookCover5_25X8_BW_130%2Bcopy.jpg" width="134" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This slim book, as I have mentioned from time to time, has always been the best-seller among my publications. (<b><i>Best-seller</i></b> being a very relative term, I assure you.) There are any number of reasons why this might be so, among them the fact that there are relatively few books about Elijah with Carmelite themes, although he is an iconic figure for the Order. As a result, this is a book that is bought in multiple copies by Carmelite (and perhaps a few other Catholic) booksellers. Tom did a great job with the cover art, as usual.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The book is my own attempt at a twenty-first century reflection on the Elijah story (especially the bit found in 1 Kings 17:1-5) in the old Carmelite manner. Beginning with that story, I ponder the experience of spiritual dryness; the meaning of detachment, charity and grace; the Holy Spirit; the often unexpected instruments of God's communication; and the role of meditation and contemplation in personal transformation. That's a lot of ground to cover in a scant 125 pages, which indicates that this is just a dip into a much deeper pool.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The ravens who brought food to Elijah intrigue me because ravens as scavengers were considered unclean by strict constructionists among Elijah co-religionists, as was anything they touched -- such as the bread and meat they brought the prophet for his meals. The following excerpt is taken from the chapter that deals with the ravens:</span><br />
<br />
---------------------------------<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Ravens:</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div align="center" class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Unexpected Messengers of God</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="Standard" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: .25in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And
these you shall have in abomination among the birds, they shall not be eaten,
they are an abomination: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey, the kite, the
falcon according to its kind, every raven according to its kind, the ostrich,
the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk according to its kind, the owl, the
cormorant, the ibis, the water hen, the pelican, the carrion vulture, the
stork, the heron according to its kind, the hoopoe, and the bat.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div align="right" class="Standard" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: .25in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Leviticus 11:13-19</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
</div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="Standard" style="margin-bottom: 1.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 1.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ravens appear in various books of
the Old Testament, and there is a certain ambivalence about their significance.
As noted above, ravens as scavengers contaminated by contact with death were
unclean.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="Standard" style="margin-bottom: 1.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 1.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">(This raises the unpleasant question, perhaps, of the nature of the meat
they brought to Elijah for his evening meal, although most readers probably
assume the meat was cooked in some way by the same divine agency that provided
it. There is a rabbinic tradition that the ravens stole the food from inns to
bring to the prophet, but that creates other problems.)</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="Standard" style="margin-bottom: 1.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 1.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Ravens are not evil, for being unclean had to do with ritual purity,
not with morality. This is a point that is sometimes misunderstood in cultures
such as ours in which the notion of ritual impurity is unfamiliar. Except for
Jewish and Muslim Americans, most of us in this country have no religious ideas
about unclean food. We do have some cultural biases, however, such as a
reluctance to eat certain kinds of meat. The notion of eating a dog or a
grasshopper, for example, while having no religious significance, is repulsive
to most of us. Yet there are places in the world where such animals are eaten
and even considered a delicacy. In any case, we do not consider dogs or
grasshoppers to be evil.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The raven appears in the story of
Noah and the ark (Genesis 8:6-8), when the raven was sent forth before the dove
to fly over the waters in search of land. The raven, no doubt finding ample
carrion on which to feast, did not bother to return. Thus the raven was in a
sense the first animal restored to the earth after the destruction caused by
the flood. Still, the image of a dark bird hovering over scattered dead bodies
is hardly as pleasant as that of a white dove flying over a renewed and
pristine earth with an olive branch in its beak.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="Standard" style="margin-bottom: 1.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 1.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Although we tend to associate small
and tender birds with scripture – the dove and sparrow, for example – ravens
appear as examples of God’s special care in Psalm 147:8 where the Lord is said
to “cover the heavens with clouds, to provide the earth with rain, to produce
fresh grass on the hillsides and the plants that are needed by man and woman,
who gives food to their cattle and to the young ravens when they cry.”</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="Standard" style="margin-bottom: 1.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 1.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Everyone is familiar with the admonition of Jesus to consider the birds
of the air, found in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew (6:26), but Luke’s
version indicates that Jesus spoke specifically of ravens. (Luke 12:23) Note
also that God feeds the ravens here as in Psalm 147. Apparently the carrion
that sustains the ravens and that renders them unclean itself comes from God.
Again we see that the idea of ritual impurity is not the same as immorality or
evil.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="Standard" style="margin-bottom: 1.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 1.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">In September of 1972, I went to the Discalced Carmelite novitiate
outside Little Rock, Arkansas to be interviewed as a candidate. My
conversations with the vocation director went well, but he told me that I would
also need to meet with the novice director who had reservations about admitting
me because I had been Catholic for only a couple of years. In the course of the
interview the novice director, who was warm and charming, asked if I could deal
with ambiguity. He later claimed that I had responded, “Maybe yes, maybe no.”
He thought I was trying to see if <i>he</i> could deal with ambiguity.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="Standard" style="margin-bottom: 1.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 1.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">It is a vital question, however, that of our ability to cope with
ambiguity. Contemplatives, as we will see in a later chapter, do not find their
certitude in clear-cut answers but in God and God alone. So we cannot be
certain that a messenger is from God based only on clear ideas about what such
a messenger should look like according to our own lights. There is ambiguity.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="Standard" style="margin-bottom: 1.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 1.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">God nourished Elijah by means of unclean ravens. In the Book of Numbers
(22:28) we are told that God spoke to the prophet Balaam through the agency of
an ass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God is not limited in the means
of communication with us; we must strive to place no limits on our listening
for that communication, however surprisingly it may come to us.</span></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="margin: 1pt 0in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></span></div>
Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-17004506462810935092016-06-16T04:30:00.001-05:002016-06-16T04:30:00.149-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-82aRNMK0T0M/V2HDMR5nkDI/AAAAAAAASAQ/T1BebYffvvgAWDoIsxhYGf93KFz6HDhtwCLcB/s1600/th.jpe" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-82aRNMK0T0M/V2HDMR5nkDI/AAAAAAAASAQ/T1BebYffvvgAWDoIsxhYGf93KFz6HDhtwCLcB/s320/th.jpe" width="314" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-68794711244361805822016-06-15T06:26:00.001-05:002016-06-15T06:32:00.953-05:00Light<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When I was a freshman at Michigan State, I got a message to call
my best friend back home. When I got in touch with him, he told me that a
classmate of ours – a guy I had known since I was four<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, </span>whose father
had helped build the house I grew up in and who had grown up in a house my father helped build – had died that afternoon. The university he attended was on spring break, and he was
working at a construction site on campus to earn some extra cash. It was the end of the work day and work week. He
had gone down into a pit they were digging to finish a task before heading
home. The sandy side of the pit collapsed, burying him up to his neck. Sand
packed in around him so tightly that it knocked the breath out of him and he
was unable to get a breath. Almost everyone had gone home and only a few people were there to try to rescue him. The more they dug at the sand that was suffocating him, the more sand slid down to press against him. By the time they finally dug him out, he was gone. He was nineteen years old, very bright and a
star athlete. He had been a member of my closest circle of friends.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When I heard the news, everything went black. Literally. I
did not faint, but the light in the telephone booth disappeared and I sat there
stunned. I had experienced the death of people before – grandparents, even
classmates who died in automobile accidents or who took their own lives. But
this one hit hard. Very hard. I felt like the breath had been knocked out of me, too.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I thought of that today as I reflected on the Orlando
tragedy. None of the victims were people I knew. But they were someone’s
children, friends, boyfriends, classmates, co-workers, an engaged couple. Lives ended and other
lives changed forever. The light went out of the room for way too many people
this past weekend.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What saddens me about my own reaction is that the light did
not even dim for me this time. I am no longer stunned into darkness by senseless
death and violence. My classmate died in a freak accident, a random shifting of
sand granules on a late April afternoon. The Orlando victims died because
someone hated them, actually hated what he thought they represented. [Joy? Love? Laughter?] Someone who felt the way he felt and thought the way he thought in part because of what he believed about God, what he had been taught about God. [My first thought, I am ashamed to say, when I heard the story was that it had been a Christian who had done it, for the very same reasons that motivated the actual killer.] Apparently someone who was afraid of something within himself that he had been taught to hate. Someone
who was able to buy a gun, a weapon of mass destruction, if you will, because that is so easy to do in America, loaded it
and walked into the middle of a partying crow<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">d</span> and opened fire.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Yet the light did not dim around me when I heard about it. I was
angry, sad, horrified, resentful. But I was not stunned, not shocked, not
surprised. This is the country we (and I say <i><b>we</b></i>, not <b><i>they</i></b>) have created, in
which we live. In which someone can walk into a schoolroom in Connecticut and
gun down six- and seven-year-olds, and our political leaders will offer
meaningless “thoughts and prayers” but do nothing -- <i><b>nothing! </b></i>-- to make sure this never,
never, never happens again. Instead, there is a mass shooting (defined as one involving four or more victims) each day in the United States.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Every. Single. Day.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Because the <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Higher Power</span> that too many worship here is money<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> wa<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">lking hand in hand </span></span>with guns. Churches and political candidates hold raffles and give guns away<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> as prizes. Churches explain to their members that it is okay to bring guns into the san<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ctu<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ary of the <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Prince of Peace </span>to make themselves feel sa<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">fe. Because<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> their Higher Power is a gun. The NRA spe<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ws the same lies and distortions <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">it always does. I do<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">n<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'t know why it usually takes them two days after these in<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">cidents to issue a statement. They always say the same thin<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">g. And of course, they only <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">issue statements <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">when the latest atrocity sets a record or at least approaches it.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Something is terribly wrong.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As I read over <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">what I have written</span>, I <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">realize that</span> I misspoke, as the politicians say. Perhaps the
light did dim for me. In grief for those who cannot or will not let what
happened in Orlando and Newtown and so many other places change things in America. People who could offer something beyond pitiful thoughts [What thoughts could they possibly be thinking?] and prayers [to what God?], people who could offer solutions. Who think the death of a chil<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">d, of a roomful of children, less important than <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> questionable interpretation of a legal right.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But of course, money talks and the N<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">RA's money talks loudly.</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I realize that not all NRA members are craz<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">y. But <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">until those who are sane rise up and replace their hateful leadership with <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">responsible</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">people, they bear part of the blame.</span></span></span> Sorry, friends and family (I have both who are <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">in the NR<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A), but them's the facts.</span></span></span> </span></span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Oh, the <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">same people are terribly pro-life, of cou<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">rse, when it <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">suits their purposes, gather<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ing votes. Not so much when it <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">might hurt business.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And for what it's worth, arming everyone in the room at Newtown or Orlando would not have been a solution, although I know that has already been suggested because it always is. It's part of the <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">press release template. They don't even have to write it, just fill in the blank with the name of the <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">relevant</span> tragedy.</span> </span>Just sayin'. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Idiots!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">that conversation with my best<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> friend about <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">our classmate's d<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">eath, I <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">felt powerless. Although not a Catholic, not <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a b<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">eliever of any kind in those days, I walked <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">up the road to a variety store and b<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ought a <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">glass voti<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ve holder and a voti<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ve<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> candle. I brought them <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">back to the dorm and lit the candle for my friend. I needed at least a little light<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> to burn through that night</span>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">May each of us find a way to be light in the world. There is
darkness enough. May I <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">live in the light<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and not in the sh<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">adow of my anger and frustration<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. Only love, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am</span> told, conquers hate. Only light overcomes the darkness.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-36021028483396607372016-06-12T16:21:00.002-05:002016-06-15T08:37:43.112-05:00Sunday sportsmen<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This afternoon Tom and I went over to watch a cricket match in Madison. Or, as I said earlier in my post about my plans, we watched part of a cricket match. The teams were all adult Indian men, guys in their twenties and thirties. I gather from overheard snippets of conversations that they were a mix of doctoral students and computer folks.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We were two of the three non-playing spectators. A middle-aged guy, clearly American, was sitting near us and one of the players, a co-worker, was whispering details to him, explaining what had just happened. This was very helpful, but I was not quite close enough to catch it all.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZQiok4RhCew/V13Q8Xn6LPI/AAAAAAAAR_M/HJK5RVe7TywmBu0XRwhdmWlUeeeS5vACACLcB/s1600/th.jpe" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZQiok4RhCew/V13Q8Xn6LPI/AAAAAAAAR_M/HJK5RVe7TywmBu0XRwhdmWlUeeeS5vACACLcB/s200/th.jpe" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When we arrived, we asked where we could sit -- it was a bring-your-own-chair kind of event -- and a friendly fellow pointed out where we might set up and see what was going on with little danger of being hit by a ball. (I listened to your advice, Sunny!) We explained that we knew nothing about cricket. Well, I had looked at an instructional YouTube video and printed out a brief introduction for dummies, and Tom and I had read it. The guys smiled wryly and warned, "It's a long game."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We admitted we had heard as much.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We stayed for an hour, leaving when they took a break. Don't ask me what happened. It was very leisurely, but even knowing as little as I do, it seemed to move more quickly than American baseball. There was a lot less standing around while the bowler (think "pitcher") looked around at everyone on the field two or three times. The chatter was quite different, too. I don't recall hearing American baseball fans shout, "Lovely! Lovely batting!" or "Good running, boys!" Not sure how much of that is owing to it being cricket and how much to them being well-educated Indians. I heard (or at least recognized) not a single profanity.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Tom had brought his Kindle so that he would have something to read, but I noticed that he soon put it aside and paid attention to what was happening on the cricket ground.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now it is a sign of his generous spirit that Tom accompanied me at all, cricket being something that had caught my attention, not his. And to do so, he passed up watching the FireKeepers Casino 400 NASCAR race at Michigan International Speedway. As soon as we got home, however, while I took care of hungry cats, Tom went to the television to check on the race. There were ten laps left and his favorite, Joey Logano was in the lead. Joey went on to win, his first Sprint Cup victory of the season. I told Tom Joey must do better when Tom isn't watching.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Anyway, that was our sports Sunday. </span>Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-17420742807581940352016-06-12T13:02:00.000-05:002016-06-12T13:02:05.187-05:00And yet again<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-28514800196498578222016-06-12T11:19:00.001-05:002016-06-15T08:37:56.776-05:00Others<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the mid-1980s, I spent a year at St. Louis University in a program for priests, brothers and sisters who were involved in or preparing for formation ministry, that is, in the training of new members for their own communities. It was a great program, one I cannot praise enough. My sister-in-law once told my mother that I came back from St. Louis a different person. If so, it was because I had been in a different and wonderful world for nine months.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of the most valuable aspects of the program was the international flavor of the students and the instructors. Of the 50 participants, half were from the States, but others were from Australia, Japan, Uganda, Ghana, Colombia, Philippines, Spain, Zambia, South Africa ... We all had our Catholicism in common, but it was for most of us, the first experience of the root meaning of the Greek word <b><i>καθολική</i></b>, catholic, meaning all-inclusive.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of the presenters, I think it was Brother David Steindl-Rast, commented in passing that all religious communities, especially those in the States, should subscribe to at least one foreign newspaper. (He did not think <i>L'Osservatore Romano</i> should count, for obvious reasons.) He had the impression, after many years in this country -- he is Swiss-born -- that Americans have little idea about what goes on outside our boundaries (often outside our own city or state), and that what little we did know came through the filter of American media. He thought we would benefit from exposure to another point of view. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Parenthetical remark:</b> For a number of years my own community watched BBC American in the evening after the regular American network news. It was particularly enlightening during the Gulf conflicts.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Well, the fact that he was taking about <i>newspapers</i> dates the suggestion, but the fact that so many of us rely on the internet should mean we have easier access to what he meant: a variety of viewpoints. We don't have to run out and get a subscription to a foreign newspaper, even an English-language edition. Tap a few keys, and there we are!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Or are we?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The reality is, on social media we "friend" ... well, our friends, people pretty much like us. We read the blogs of people like us and so on. We watch television news channels that confirm what we already believe and change the channel when an opposing position is offered. We can easily forget that there are lots of other points of view out there. And why bother with them, right? After all, who has time to waste on the loonies?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Except they don't bother with us because we are <i>their</i> loonies.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Okay, maybe you are different. I would like to think so. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Me? I try, but I still ... well, I feel more <b><i>comfortable </i></b>with people who won't rock my boat. I dip occasionally into the blog of someone who holds different political or religious views, but to be honest, I tend to skim over those bits and just read the bits that we have in common. I don't do Facebook and Twitter because I think they are a waste of time. (For me, for me.) But I also found them disheartening because I was exposed to so much that I did not like there. So I turned them off.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So as I ponder what I might do with some of the time that I will have on my hands after closing down this blog at whatever future date, I thought about reducing the amount of time I spend reading other blogs, too. Today, though, I am thinking about expanding that time, but to include blogs by people who experience the world differently. Outside my comfort zone. And maybe, once in a while, people who express that experience in a way I find disturbing, annoying, rage-inducing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I can't say I will do a lot of this. Certainly not at first. There is a reason I let my coffee cool down before I take a deep swallow. But who knows? Maybe like that morning coffee, the experience will wake me in some way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Even when I would rather stay asleep.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To paraphrase the great American philosopher Pogo, I may meet the others and they is us. </span>Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-48954867557078947902016-06-12T07:07:00.000-05:002016-06-15T08:38:28.084-05:00Big plans for Sunday!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1) Buy cat food.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2) And two kinds of cat treats.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3) And toothpaste</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">4) Watch (part of) cricket match in Amund Reindahl Park</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">5) Get some exercise </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Meh.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">PS -- [An<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">d totally <i><b>not </b></i>Meh!] A shout out to my b<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">rother Ted and his lovely wife Cynthia on their 45th wedding anniversary!</span></span></span> </span>Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567424288052948259.post-86844429844709462532016-06-12T04:30:00.000-05:002016-06-15T08:40:57.286-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Michael Doddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942287172727040371noreply@blogger.com0