The Saturday Morning Post: Requiem Eternam MMXXII

 Welcome, God and All...

It's been some time since I allowed myself the opportunity to post a reflection. Enough has been going on, and it's getting harder to make postings quickly. I promise more on that in the near future. 

Today, though, we once more approach the day of All Hallows; that time in the Church year when we reflect on our own mortality by recalling all who have died. It has become an annual tradition of mine to borrow from the Wikipedian almanac and offer a partial listing of the famous and infamous who were summoned into eternal life over the last twelve months. When I last checked, my name wasn't on the list...but you never know...

2021

November

November 7 – Dean Stockwell, American actor (b. 1936)

November 11 - F. W. de Klerk, 7th and last State President of South Africa and Nobel laureate (b. 1936)

November 26 – Stephen Sondheim, American composer and lyricist (b. 1930)

December

December 10 – Michael Nesmith, American musician and television personality (b. 1942)

December 11 - Anne Rice, American author (b. 1941)

December 26 - Desmond Tutu, South African Anglican archbishop, activist and Nobel laureate (b. 1931)

December 31 – Betty White, American actress (b. 1922)

2022

January

January 2 - Richard Leakey, Kenyan paleoanthropologist and conservationist (b. 1944)

January 6 - Peter Bogdanovich, American film director (b. 1939)

January 6 - Sidney Poitier, Bahamian-American actor, activist and ambassador (b. 1927)

January 20 - Meat Loaf, American singer and actor (b. 1947)

February

February 7 – Douglas Trumbull, American film director, special effects supervisor and inventor (b. 1942)

February 10 - Duvall Hecht, American rower, publisher and Olympic champion (b. 1930)

February 12 – Ivan Reitman, Czechoslovak-born Canadian film director and producer (b. 1946)

March

March 13 – William Hurt, American actor (b. 1950)

March 23 – Madeleine Albright, Czechoslovak-born American politician (b. 1937)

March 25 – Taylor Hawkins, American musician (b. 1972)

April

April 9 – Jack Higgins, English author (b. 1929)

April 18 – Sir Harrison Birtwistle, English composer (b. 1934)

April 26 – Klaus Schulze, German composer and musician (b. 1947)

May

May 17 – Vangelis, Greek composer and musician (b. 1943)

May 26 - Alan White, English drummer and songwriter (b. 1949)

May 27 – Angelo Sodano, 54th Secretary of State of the Holy See (b. 1927)

June

June 6 – Valery Ryumin, Soviet cosmonaut (b. 1939)

June 14 – A. B. Yehoshua, Israeli novelist, essayist and playwright (b. 1936)

June 27 – Leonardo Del Vecchio, Italian businessman (b. 1935)

July

July 8 - Shinzo Abe, 57th Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1954)

July 8 - Luis Echeverría, 57th President of Mexico (b. 1922)

July 29 – Juris Hartmanis, Latvian-born American computer scientist (b. 1928)

August

August 8 – Dame Olivia Newton-John, Australian singer and actress (b. 1948)

August 12 – Wolfgang Petersen, German film director and producer (b. 1941)

August 30 - Mikhail Gorbachev, 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union and Nobel Peace Prize recipient (b. 1931)

September

September 8 – Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms (b. 1926)

September 15 – Saul Kripke, American philosopher and logician (b. 1940)

September 28 – Coolio, American rapper and actor (b. 1963)

October

(through October 25)

October 4 – Loretta Lynn, American country singer and songwriter (b. 1932)

October 11 – Dame Angela Lansbury, Irish-British American actress and singer (b. 1925)

October 24 – Ash Carter, American politician (b. 1954)

October 28 - Jerry Lee Lewis, 87, American Hall of Fame singer ("Great Balls of Fire", "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On", "High School Confidential") (b.1935)

In addition, we remember the many unnamed who died from natural disasters and pandemic illness. We also remember all who died due to acts of violence all over the world, especially in the war between Ukraine and Russia.

May all the faithful departed now rest forever in the arms of our loving Savior; and. through your superabundant mercy, O God, rest in peace.

Until we meet again, may the same God be with you...

+the Phoenix

The "Post" - A Week That Changed the World; But NOT ‘THE’ Week

 updated from the archives of The Saturday Morning Post

April 20, 2022

Welcome, God and All...

Easter should be a time where joy abounds unabated. Nature is resplendent in color as winter’s icy grip is finally released. The inner peace we so long for is within our reach…right?

If only we could let go of what still anchors us! The beauty and message of this most sacred day should lift us skyward like helium-filled balloons, and we should rejoice in the brilliance of light that surrounds us!

But…we just can’t forget.

Remember back in December, when we were all reading or watching one version or another of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol? Jacob Marley’s ghost, laden down with chains? I remember reflecting that I myself had developed a set of ‘ponderous chains’ in a moment of self-deprecating humor. Lent provided the opportunity to look at the symbolic chains you and I bear. I discovered things I didn’t like to see; I’m taking a reasonable guess you probably did, too. We’ve had a chance to work on those these last six weeks. We should rejoice in any progress we might be making. And we should continue working to make ourselves better persons, and the world around us a better place.

However, King David, the writer of Psalm 51 (and others), acknowledged that we have a way of reminding ourselves of the nastier stuff we’ve done or failed to do, and that knowledge is a temptation that flaunts itself in the face of the unbounded joy we should be celebrating:

---Twenty-eight years ago, Easter came and went, and my colleagues in formation for the diaconate were thrown back unceremoniously into a type of Lent as a new bishop was named for my diocese, with the possibility that our ordination would be put off - or canceled altogether. Happily, that didn’t happen.

---The following year (1995), Easter came and went, and in that week, the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed by a domestic terrorist. I had been offered the opportunity to preach the following weekend on the story of ‘Doubting’ Thomas the apostle. Instead, I felt I had to shift my focus on the reminder that events like this one call us to ask once again, why does an all-loving God allow these to happen?

---Four years later (1999), Easter had already passed at the end of March. I was living unhappily with the decision to forfeit active ministry after exhausting the futile attempt to find a solution to make everyone else happy, even if it meant I might not be. But I was slapped out of that on this very date twenty years ago, when the Columbine High School incident took place. And every year since then, we have been reminded - with alarming frequency - that there is no truly safe haven in this world.

---It was eight years ago today - in 2014 it was Easter Sunday - that was the last time I could speak with my beloved Diane. It’s like I had appeared at the threshold of the gates of Hell itself. I had already been out of work three weeks; Diane would leave this world eleven days later, and my mother followed her twenty-eight hours after that.

---And we got six-plus inches of snow on an April Sunday in 2019, enough to cancel a thousand flights at Chicago’s O’Hare airport - and I had a near miss or two driving in it because at first we were of the mindset that ‘the Lord giveth and (so) the Lord taketh away’. And He did, twenty-four hours later.

---And I wept the following Monday afternoon, as I watched in shock and horror, the fire that was consuming the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, France. And I prayed that God would let me perish the thought that this might not have happened accidentally. I am angered that this tragedy, too, has become part of the arsenal of thoughtlessness that divides us. 

---And if that were not enough, there's the COVID pandemic that shut out public celebration of the Lord's Resurrection in 2020 and still had some limitations on it in 2021; and its specter still hangs over us in 2022 as any gathering in large numbers threatens a surge of the latest variant - as well as arguments to the point of violence regarding vaccines and the use of face masks. My son and I have also had health scares thus far in 2022. While not COVID related, they must be dealt with. I just can't keep living 'on the edge', as it were.

---On top of this, there's the current state of affairs in the geopolitical arena, marked by the invasion of the Ukraine by Russia, and the global economic chaos that this and the pandemic has brought on (and exacerbated by the present administration - but that's another story for another time). 

The devil is still surely at work in the world. Working harder than ever, to keep us anchored and mired in our waywardness, our false sense of privilege; that we would redefine just what human rights are and aren’t, in seemingly direct defiance of God’s plan.

But I still found the opportunity to dwell on THE Week that truly Changed the World. On it I have pinned my hopes, my ultimate dreams. From the events of that one week that secular timelords would rather I forget, in lieu of all the links of chain I bear from the history I list above - as well as that I haven’t listed - that’s where God continually invests in His creation - you, and me. Had it not happened, had Jesus not come to Earth to give of himself, I don’t know where I would be. Perhaps I would not be at all. Maybe God would have had enough, and this world destroyed by being sucked into the Sun, or blasted into pieces by a comet. Perhaps we would be annihilated by aliens who are better disciples than we are; being led to their ‘promised land.’ Or maybe he would have let us destroy ourselves…

But we were never meant to walk this road alone…

No, THIS is the Day that the Lord has made. And not only today, but every day of the past and every day that is yet to come. Think about that on Monday, when the routine will start over. Are we dreading another day of this, or that, or are we rejoicing that we’ve yet one more chance to give honor and glory to God in even the smallest of ways? Because those small acts have the potential to move mountains, and call upon the Holy Spirit to renew the face of the earth. And it needs renewing, I think we can agree on that. The Savior of the World did not do everything he did - including the brutal and senseless suffering he endured - in vain. No way! Jesus broke the prison bars of spiritual death, and has opened Paradise to all who believe.

God my Father, please accept as the offering most pleasing to you, the sacrifice of Jesus, your Son. May the legacy he left here continue to shine brightly and dispel the darkness in our minds and hearts! And may we find our way through Him, the Morning Star that never sets, to rejoice and proclaim, now and forevermore that Christ is Risen; and sheds his peaceful light on all humanity.

Until we meet again, live in the knowledge that the Risen Lord is with you, loves you, and would do this for you even if you were the only person left on Earth. 

Peace and Blessings,

+the Phoenix

The Saturday Morning Post: A Week at 'Club Med'

 January 29, 2022

Welcome, God and All...

We are 1/12th into 2022. If the rest of the year plays out anything like the last month has, I will be looking at having a direct line to Jesus intalled in my house and my car.

I had a minor fender-bender with an overhead garage door at a local car wash. I hadn't even had the car a month, and hadn't made the first payment yet. It's covered, and the repairs will be made - but not until March, because that's how backed up the body shop is. And no, nobody was hurt. I'm truly thanjkful for that.

In the meantime, at home my son was developing congestion in his chest. Figuring it was a cold, I went about treating it as such with over the counter medication. But it wasn't getting any better. Later that week, when we headed to a local indoor track to do several laps walking, he started to complain about having to do the walking. I told him that we were not out to set any records, just to finish the course. My son is special needs and has some trouble being accurate and truthful over situations. Finally, we cut the walking short and headed home. Almost immediately, his mood improved, leading me to think he was simply acting up; only the congestion was still there. I needed to observe more to determine what to do next.

At the beginning of the following week, still not seeing any improvement in the congestion or his breathing, I called his PCP. Maybe they could prescribe something stronger to knock out the congestion. Instead, I was told to take my son to the emergency room at the hospital. With the latest COVID-19 variant on the loose, nobody wanted to take any chances. And thus began the odyssey that still isn't quite over, but has definitely proven that I make a lousy medical professional.

My son was looked at and tested and diagnosed within the first three hours of our arrival at the hospital. He was tested for COVID (current protocls mandate it); that test was negative. Other tests indicated a cloudy lung; that and his labored breathing rendered a diagnosis of pneumonia. Because of the labored breathing, it was decided to admit him. He was put on oxygen and antibiotics...and, twelve hours after arriving at the ER, was put in a hospital room.

COVID protocols are prohibiting outside visitors. While I understood this, as being developmentally disabled it would be very difficult for my son to be left alone to deal with his illness. Other patients were having to share updates on their own illnesses with spouses or family over the phone. It seems miraculous in itself that I would be able to stay with my son while he was hospitalized. However, I would sacrifice my freedom to do nearly anything, I could not leave his room. Anything I might need or want from the outside - my razor, cell phone chargers, extra clothes - were delivered to the hospital's main door by my sister, where a nurse or an aide would retrieve it and bring it to our room. They were always kind about it; but I knew it was an imposition that with each passing day made me wonder how I was going to get bills paid and conduct what little business I might have. It was a sacrifice I had to make, an act of love and mercy I would offer to the Lord. I felt like Saint Paul and Saint Thomas More, who were imprisoned for doing what they had to do. While I was definitely treated better than the two saints, I wondered how long this would play out. 

While the nurses and hospital staff were as accommodating as they could be, I knew their work load was strained. The hospital was at 75% capacity. The ICU was completely full. In the days before we went in, the ER was triaging incoming patients in hallways, according to a patient who had come in the week before us. Nurses' assignments were shifted to alleviate bottlenecks elsewhere in the hospital. Doctors, on the other hand, gave the appearance of Pontius Pilate.In the six days my son was hospitalized, the amount of time there was actually a doctor in the room with us was less than thirty minutes. Yeah, being a respiratory case they want to minimize physical contact; and given the marvels of the electronic age, chart progress can be monitored remotely. I know the doctors were not without compassion, but it's hard to see it when you don't see them.

A moment of spontaneous humor came early, whiile in the ER. It's hard to draw blood from him; a trait he got from his mother's side of the family. At one point there were four nurses in the room; one was using a ultrasound in order to find a vein to tap. I made the comment that my son was going to extremes to meet girls. That drew laughter; relief at a time when we didn't know much.

I continued to reflect that I had voluntarily become a 'prisoner' for my son. It came to me that Jesus, the Son of God, by the will of His Heavenly Father, accepted confinement in a human body for thirty-three years; knowing the outcome was going to be...well, messy. Messy enough that He even petitioned his Father to stop what was coming. But He stopped short, saying "not My will, but Yours be done." Throughout his entire life, all He knew - all He did was out of compassion and love. Ultimately I hunkered down for the duration of the storm out of a fragment of that sense of compassion. 

I asked for prayers and received them. I sent updates every morning and would pray the Rosary. My son gifted me with watching morning Mass on EWTN (the channel is in the hospital's TV feed). I did some spiritual research and discovered that St. Bernardine of Siena is the patron saint of respiratory patients. I found an intercessory prayer and prayed it. I noted that his progress sped up after making that prayer.

We have been home nearly a week, and we will turn the page into the next phase of this odyssey. There will be follow-up visits with his PCP. He's still using the oxygen, so we will have to determine how long that will continue. He has sleep apnea, something I sort of knew but now I know must be dealt with. It's a miracle in itself that i'm managing all this. But by God's grace there is a pathway, and for as long a He wills it, we will walk it together, coupled with the prayers of the many with whom we interact.

Until we meet again, may God be with you - and may God have mercy on us all...

+the Phoenix