The Anchoress

Thank you. From my email know many of you - perhaps hundreds, perhaps thousands - whispered up generous and heartfelt prayers regarding this situation.

Yesterday was a tough, frightening, emotionally and spiritually exhausting day…as with many things, the situation had to get worse before it could get better. Things skated upon a hoary edge…at one point I remember thinking, “Lord, I thought I asked you to stand between these two so that wouldn’t happen!” Then I realized…sometimes a thing must play out - a pustule must burst - before healing can begin. Sometimes in order for people to wake up and see how far gone a situation is, there must be that sharp slap to the senses. Yesterday brought that.

Last night, a hurdle was crossed. Today, things are a little better, certainly calmer, and there seems to be resolve, all around, that the family will work to do better, will work to avoid things spiraling so fearfully out of control, and there is some oversight. One parent stepped up, finally. The other backed down. Concerned and interested parties provided help and counsel. Hopefully, as prayers for this family continue, and they get some help…things will slowly but steadily improve.

Prayer works. At one point, yesterday, we got the kid who was hurting the most out of that house, knowing - of course - that we’d have to bring her back. We worried about the “bringing back” part - what would we be bringing her home to? Buster told me that he was saying to God, “c’mon now, we have people praying all over the world, here - we’ve got three monasteries praying - we’ve put St. Joseph in charge of the father and Mary in charge of the Mother - we’ve corralled prayers from everyone from St. Michael the Archangel to St. Thomas More to St. John Fisher to all the Saints and Blessed Theresa’s and Elizabeth’s and even Kateri Tekakwitha! We roped in Cardinal O’ Connor and JPII - do you really need me to pray, too? It’s not like you don’t know the need!”

At that point the phone rang, with the news that things were straightening out, that things were markedly better and points would be addressed, matters were being handled - that we could take the kid back home without fear.

Prayer works. Thank you for praying. Please don’t forget these folks, particularly the two teens and the little one, as they go about working for healing. This family has no faith, and so they have little hope and no habit of looking beyond a thing, to what is “seen and unseen” and so their work may be more difficult that it might be for others. They’ll need prayers for a long time.

And thank you, also, for praying for my BFF Diane, who - it turns out - was bringing out a kidney stone. This has been going on for months and they finally - finally - figured it out with this trip to the ER, as past trips hadn’t shown it.

Clarity and healing…wonderful things to pray for. I am so grateful to you for your generosity.

I was going to shut down comments on this thread, because I know you people and that you’re too generous and you also think much too well of me, and I didn’t want to be reading comments about how “good” we were to help this family. I’m not good. I went kicking and screaming into this saying, “what the hell? Why is this on my plate?” But I’ll let the comments stay open, because you all should have your chance to praise God, from whom all blessings - and all clarity and healing - flow. Thanks again. Maybe tomorrow I’ll actually blog a bit. Today…we rest up from battle, and pray in thanksgiving, and in hopes that tomorrow is better than today.

Sorry it’s been so quiet over here. Aside from just spending 7 hours in the ER with my best friend, all of our time has been taken up dealing with a family (no, not ours) who are struggling with many issues, including mental health, and the children within the family who are being mentally and emotionally abused. One of them has been essentially not permitted out of the bedroom since Saturday for - believe me - an “infraction” so minor a normal parent would barely notice it (and no, the bedroom has no computer, no phone, no tv - nothing) the other kids are so intimidated, they’re just trying to stay out of a tyrant’s line of fire.

How did we get involved? I have no idea, but there is no walking away from this. We’re storming heaven in prayer for them, trying to turn a Titanic around before it strikes a berg, and now I’m about to make phone calls to see if anything can be done to help. We’re begging God to send his angels, and Christ to stand between the parents and kids and each other as they try to survive one parent who has created a vortex of insanity and another too whipped to save the kids. If you are inclined to pray, please pray for for T and her family. And if you have a spare prayer, one for Diane, who is writhing in pain in an ER with no answers in site.

I don’t know when I’ll be back to blogging. The focus is here, right now. I thank you.

Cannot write long today - the back is better but the schedule is full and guests are on the horizon, so that’s where my focus is.

But I wanted to just link you to this story, because it’s something to think about.

A walking stick is the unlikely center of a debate about political protocol, theological precision and news-marketing as a corporal work of mercy.

President Bush gave the odd, carved walking stick to Pope Benedict XVI on June 9 on a visit to Rome. In some quarters, the gift became a laughingstock.

As a post on one Catholic blog put it, “You go all the way to Rome and you give the Pope a stick! Mr. Bush, has America nothing better to offer?”

But stick supporters point out that the staff, inscribed with the Ten Commandments, was one of several gifts of state the president presented to Pope Benedict that day. And the fact that the president gave it to the Pope may have kept a former homeless man and his wife off the streets and in their rented apartment.

You can go read the case “for” and “against” the stick. To me the story is about much more than whether President Bush has “har-har screwed up again.” It’s about how one receives a thing.

I’ve asked before - how do you receive a good? If someone gives you a gift that they’ve spent a good deal of time selecting for you, even if it is not to your taste, do you accept it and ask for the receipt so you can return it? Or do you accept it and then shove it away in a drawer? Or do you keep it nearby and consider it, use it, and try to figure out just what it was about the gift that made someone select it for you? Sometimes there is some self-discovery in doing that. You learn what you show to other people, for one thing.

How do you receive a “good” in the larger world of politics and religion - even, within that sphere, if you’re not sure a thing is good, but you know the intentions are? Do you ever consider the value of a good intention? Not simply that “the road to hell is paved with them,” but that there is power in intention? God created the whole world through it.

How do you receive things from God - or from “the Universe,” if that is how you prefer to think - is it all “blessing” or all “curse?”

How do you receive a person who crosses your path of a day? Do you take in appearance, clothing, affect and assume that you know everything there is to know about that person, making “appropriate” judgment? Or do you try to find Christ in them?

In his Rule, St. Benedict tells us to “receive everyone you meet as Christ come before you.” Benedict began his prologue saying his Rule would lay “nothing harsh or burdensome” upon his monastics, but this particular order - to see Christ in whomever is before you - is a tall one. It takes years and years just to begin to acquiesce to it, even a little - it goes against every instinct. It is all about how one will choose to receive another; in the best way? Or the worst?

A while back a friend teased me and called me “gullible” (which I confess I sometimes am), and in the course of enjoying his joke, I also wrote back, more seriously:

I decided a long time ago that cynicism - to which I was prone - was simply too easy and the refuge of the timid or the hurt. I made a conscious decision to take people at their words unless their behavior warranted differently, even if it did leave me open for some teasing about gullibility. I couldn’t stand myself when I was cynical.

The theme has been resounding with me, lately…I wrote here:

Be intellectually honest enough to admit that in this immigration controversy there are (sadly) some who are using fear to move their agenda, and there are some (only some, but they hurt us all) who reveal bigotry in their rants. You needn’t be offended if you can remember that there are those “somes” in every group; conservatives have no corner of perfection. You actually do have a choice as to how you receive what you hear, see and read, just as you have a choice as to how you receive a good, that is, with “open” or “closed” heart.

How do you choose to receive what is around you? Do you make yourself a little vulnerable by taking a thing for what it appears to be, or do you immediately start to deconstruct a gift, or a compliment, or a speech, wondering about meanings, motives and manipulations?

We live in a mean, cynical age, and it is so easy to fall into the habit of suspicion and sneers. We don’t even realize, sometimes, that we are stuck there.

I believe - because I have no reason to suspect otherwise - that the president gave the pope this stick because it was something that was meaningful to him, and because he believed the meaning was shared. I believe he gave it to Benedict with good and generous intentions. I also believe that Benedict received the thing well, both because he would be a very sorry sort of pope if he allowed his concerns to be as picayune as those of the press, and because he would have no reason to accept it as anything but a good intention.

There will always be those who will look at every circumstance, every story, every speech, every gift, and pick and pick and pick, at what is “wrong” or “imperfect” or “not quite right” with it, losing site of what a gift is, completely…losing site of the intention behind a gift. This is how they receive. It is how they choose to receive a good, and it is joyless and sterile and it grows nothing. I do not see how it leads to receiving “more” good.

It is easy to be generous in our gift-giving; much more difficult to be generous in what we receive, and how we receive. To receive a thing well - with an open heart, and assuming the best of a gift or a person - that carries a bit of risk to it. But as with any risky venture, the rewards are multiplied.

I somehow hurt my back and have been unable to do more than stagger around today…sitting up is not fun either.

You might be very interested in Deacon’ Greg’s thoughts on the birth of John the Baptist and what it all means as we hit the mid-year mark. And also his look at serving at Benediction for the first time..

Great posts. Gifted writer being well-used.

Just yesterday I dared to confess my miserable mutterings as I drive:

Driving this morning I saw the usual really bad, inattentive sort of driving one sees in a day, and spent my time behind the wheel muttering, “come on, ye bastid, drive like you mean it! Which lane do you want, sweetie, do you know? Why are you driving like you’re in a coma?”

Yes, I’m distressingly bitchy, lately. But apparently I am not alone. Reader Kia kindly referred me to the Vatican’s “Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road” a sort of 10 commandments of road rage, that are not so bad, actually. A few bits culled from both articles:

“Cars tend to bring out the ‘primitive’ side of human beings, thereby producing rather unpleasant results,” the document said.

It appealed to what it called the “noble tendencies” of the human spirit, urging responsibility and self-control to prevent the “psychological regression” often associated with driving.
[…]
It urged readers not to behave in an “unsatisfactory and even barely human manner” when driving and to avoid what it called “unbalanced behaviour… impoliteness, rude gestures, cursing, blasphemy”.
[…]
It called for drivers to obey speed limits and to exercise a host of Christian virtues: charity to fellow drivers, prudence on the roads, hope of arriving safely and justice in the event of crashes.

And it suggested prayer might come in handy…The rosary was particularly well suited to recitation by all in the car since its “rhythm and gentle repetition does not distract the driver’s attention.”

I used to know that. I’ll have to start praying the rosary while driving, once again. Anything is better than this new habit of driving while grinding my teeth.

I would be really, really interested to know what the Episcopal Priest/Muslim Woman I wrote about here, who claims she is both 100% Christian and 100% Muslim is thinking re the problem of Salman Rushdie, about whom radical Islamists again have their buzzsaws in an uproar.

Too bad Rushdie didn’t write a book about some Catholic saint or Father of the Church, or a book about Jesus. He could be knighted and remain perfectly safe. Flemming Rose writes about the latest dustup over Rushdie, the UN’s inexorable move toward criminalizing any criticism of Islam, and what it is all going to mean down the road.

“…insult, blasphemy, respect for religion, those words are being repeated over and over again as justification for violent attacks and death threats. By the Iranian government, by the chairman of the Muslim Council of Britain, and by leading politicians and opinion makers in the West.

And they have made their way into the United Nation’s Human Rights Council…On March 30 it passed a scandalous resolution condoning state punishment of speech that governments deems as insulting for religion.

“The resolution is based in the expectation that it will compel the international community to acknowledge and address the disturbing phenomenon of the defamation of religions, especially Islam,” said Pakistan, speaking on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

What does this mean? Well, it means that the UN is encouraging every dictatorship to pass laws that make criticism of Islam a crime. The UN Human Rights Council legitimizes the criminal persecution of sir Salman Rushdie for having insulted people’s religious sensibilities. Beautiful, isn’t it?

I wonder if Queen Elizabeth II and her advisers had thought she would be burned in effigy and her move considered a completely religious issue, especially given her role as Defender of the Faith and Head of the Church of England? They should have thought of it. This is perhaps why it is good to not be both Queen and Church Lady.

Ah, well…it’s a truth that extremists of all stripes - both religious and secular - do more harm than good in the name of their causes. My Auntie Lillie, who was nobody’s fool, always said one should beware the zealot - in zealotry there be dragons.

I like Churchill’s take on fanatics, too: “a fanatic is one who cannot change his mind and won’t change the subject!”

There is a difference between fanaticism, for example, or zealotry, and simple, profound and quiet fidelity to what one believes and espouses:

IVANOVKA, Kazakhstan (UCAN) – Sister Vladislava Veslavska, 73, has spent the past 30 years here, but few if any other residents besides her sister know she is a Catholic nun.

Wearing a simple blue dress with a white kerchief around her head, she looks like any other elderly woman in Ivanovka, about 1,000 kilometers (about 620 miles) south of Astana, the Kazakh capital.

The 30 years she has spent apart from her Sacred Heart of Mary community in Ukraine followed an almost equal span of time during which she and the other nuns could meet only furtively and did not live together.

Now, close to 60 years since she took her vows as a religious, Sister Veslavska has an opportunity to live in a convent for the first time.

“I’m a Catholic nun, but I’ve never lived in a convent because the communists didn’t allow me to do it,” she told UCA News in May. “Only now, when Incarnate Word nuns are to open a community (in Kazakhstan), do I have a chance to openly join a religious congregation.”

Imagine that - 60 years spent unable to be who you are, living undercover and underground, as it were, alone and without spiritual support. That’s not fanaticism. That is faithfulness in love.

I wonder if the zealots of Islamic Jihad, or the extremists of any religion, or the fanatics on the secular/political left and right (I define them as anyone who thinks you should not have the freedom to express yourself because it goes against their preferred narrative…you could also call them fascists, if you like) would be able to sustain themselves and their ideas and beliefs for 60 years if they had to do it alone, without the mob they’ve gathered behind them to give them momentum and keep their rants alive. Zealots always need a mob, and they’re brilliant at assembling them. Mobs are easy. Singularity of purpose - even in the face of enormous and rabid opposition - is more difficult and therefore heroic.

Of course, the good news is - according to Isaac Newton, anyway - the world’s going to end in 2060 or thereabouts…which is, oddly enough, along the same timeline Frank Tipler is coming up with in his book The Physics of Christianity.

Well…in heaven at least we’ll be allowed to watch a Yankee Game over CNN. And we won’t have such mishaps as these to mortify us.

On a serious note, let us pray on the passing of 9 courageous firefighters - they are the best people in the world, bar none - lost in a terrible blaze in SC, for their families, their fellow firefighters. Eternal Rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let your perpetual light shine on them…may their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

There are a lot of people in my house right now - several people home from college who either grew up here or are spending the summer, Buster and his large, noisy, pals. But today everyone is out and will be for a while, so I’m going to use the time for a bit of intensive housecleaning of the both literal and metaphorical sort, because I have a lot to think about, and lately it seems like none of us really get to think. Something is always blaring at us and we seem to be living in incessant states of reaction.

Is it our nature to be reactionary beings? Perhaps to an extent, but there is a difference between reacting and responding. A reaction is often knee-jerk, a response generally a little thoughtful. I need to think.

Someone wrote to me the other day remarking that I was giving up the immigration debate for my hormones, and expressing what I think was a bit of frustration with me. I am sorry. I’m not “abandoning” a cause but realizing that I really need to take care of the interior hearth and the exterior home, if I am to be any good to anyone about anything. And anyway, I am more and more convinced that there is an enormous illusion at work here, meant to keep us barking at each other, not listening either to each other or to our better angels, and to prevent us from tending to our souls.

If you leave off the radio/stereo/television/phone, housework is contemplative work; it allows you to think about things, argue in your head and give your gut a good hearing. I need that.

Of course, I am not thinking of anything particularly wise, edifying, charitable or insightful just now. Driving this morning I saw the usual really bad, inattentive sort of driving one sees in a day, and spent my time behind the wheel muttering, “come on, ye bastid, drive like you mean it! Which lane do you want, sweetie, do you know? Why are you driving like you’re in a coma?”

No, I didn’t say this stuff to my fellow drivers, just spent the morning muttering, muttering, muttering, when perhaps a few, “Lord, helps us all drive well and safely” would have been better. Muttering is superseding instinctive prayer these days, because I am quite the menopausal, weepy, almost incoherent beetch. This is not good.

I’m also thinking it’s nice that Paul Potts won the thing over in Britain, but I wonder how his ego will fare once the hype drops off, as it inevitably will - I hope he can remain balanced. Part of his success is due to his gift, of course, but it’s also due to the fact that his story, manner and initial performance worked as an emotional depth sounder. We - who wander through most of our day numb - had the thrilled reaction. Gooseflesh was raised, tears were shed, everyone had a chance to “feel” something, and people responded to that gift by hoping he’d win…but now that he has, some will soon wonder why they don’t feel that same charge they’d felt and they’ll move on to whatever the next thing is that can stir them. Others will find in Potts an excuse to let themselves weep and emote, long after others have stopped, because feeling something is better than feeling nothing, and crying brings a nice release.

See? Horrible. I almost can’t stand myself.

Then there is this Episcopal Priest who says she is a Muslim. (H/T this thoughtful post at Junkyard Blog)

…at a St. Mark’s interfaith class, another Muslim leader taught a chanted prayer and led a meditation on opening one’s heart. The chanting appealed to the singer in Redding; the meditation spoke to her heart. She began saying the prayer daily.
[…]
She still doesn’t know why that meant she had to become a Muslim. All she knows is “when God gives you an invitation, you don’t turn it down.”

In March 2006, she said her shahada — the profession of faith — testifying that there is only one God and that Mohammed is his messenger. She became a Muslim.
[…]
She found the discipline of praying five times a day — one of the five pillars of Islam that all Muslims are supposed to follow — gave her the deep sense of connection with God that she yearned for.

It came from “knowing at all times I’m in between prayers.” She likens it to being in love, constantly looking forward to having “all these dates with God. … Living a life where you’re remembering God intentionally, consciously, just changes everything.”

Given her background, it is interesting that Ms. Redding could not perceive the idea of “surrendering to God” within Christianity, and I cannot imagine that she is unaware that chanting, surrender and praying five times a day (or more) is not exclusive to Islam, and surely did not begin with Islam. Chanting prayers multiple times a day is not even exclusive to the Abramic religions. Buddhists do it and have done it for a loooooong time.

Jews were chanting prayers 5 times a day ‘way before Mohammed ever met Gabriel, and Christians were doing it before the birth of Islam, as well. Hermits and Monastics have been “sanctifying the day” through set prayer times practically since Christianity’s inception. St. Benedict’s monks and nuns were at it ’round 500 AD, rising even in the middle of the night to chant, read scripture and pray for those who will not pray for themselves. This monastic tradition of praying the Liturgy of the Hours is ongoing, and in fact thriving right now, particularly among lay people (of all Christian traditions) possibly because the world is so loud.

So, you know…she wants to be a Muslim, more power to her - we all find our own ways to God, in the end - but the Christian churches might want to sit up and take notice of this piece, and consider whether watering down the tenets of Christianity to “suit the times” is not in fact resulting in sharp swings toward fundamentalism by people who are looking for more than the liturgy of “whatever makes you happy is enough to be your god;” who are looking for a real relationship with a Living God who actually dares to make a few demands on us.

As I’ve scolded before, we’re supposed to live the faith throughout the ages, not live the ages throughout the faith.

See, I told you. I’m not fit for human company, lately. I’m going to go shut up, now, and give the kitchen floor a good scrubbing.

Buster is graduating from High School. I asked him yesterday if he thought he’d received a good education from his public high school, meaning not simply adequate exposure to maths, sciences, etc, but how he felt it had broadened and informed his world view.

He said he felt most of the learning he did in his senior year had little to do with classes and more to do with making choices and living with them, weighing options and costs against your actions. And he’s probably right. Some of his friends are classicists and scholars and some are more like the rest of us. I always thought this speech by RFK was a good illustration in how a good education can broaden your resources and perspective, but as Buster notes, life experiences come into it, too.

We’ll not see the like of RFK again. To our detriment.

First posted October 2004:

Since I am home tending to a sick teenager today, I’ve had time to think, catch up with some email and chat a bit with friends. Many of the commentators in my last entry on my brother’s illness left lovely thoughts, prayers and poems, and I am very thankful and moved (and quite humbled) by the generosity of these people who don’t know us from Adam and yet offer comfort. Bless you. (And belated public thanks to Andrew Sullivan for his unexpected and kind linkage).

One poem stood out to me - it was familiar but I couldn’t place it: and when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he shall make the face of heaven so fine that all the world shall be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.”

Very, very lovely lines that I may use on my brother’s behalf. My pal Greg reminded me that the line was from Romeo and Juliet, and recalled that Robert F. Kennedy had used the very same lines at the 1964 Democratic Convention, when referring to his slain brother, the President. That got us chatting about how much we had admired RFK. For those of you who read me and think “Brain-Dead-Nazi-Right-winger!” believing you have my number, you might be surprised to learn that I was, until pretty recently, a left-leaning Democrat, and that Robert Francis Kennedy was and still is a hero of mine. Were there anyone of his caliber still in a leadership position within the Democrat party, I might still be there.

Greg then reminded me of RFK’s particular grace and gift for speaking “off the cuff”, that it was Kennedy’s remarks to the campaign crowds immediately upon the murder of Martin Luther King that quite possibly prevented rioting, bloodshed and more tragedy. I re-read the speech and had to marvel, after wiping my eyes. A remarkable and moving tribute, given extemporaneously, it is brilliant in its scope, its personal revelation and historical appreciation and context. In a few short minutes, the man managed to gather himself together (and think of just how shocking it must have been, how un-nerving, to in an instant re-live his own trauma at the slaying of his brother, and then manage to be both wise and re-assuring. How courageous!). Here is just a bit of it:

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it’s perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black — considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible — you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization — black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

Go read the speech (or you can listen to it if you like), and you will be amazed that Bobby Kennedy was able to so quickly draw on his own resources, to speak from his own experiences, and also to bring in the ancients. The benefit of a quick and gifted mind that has been well-educated, absolutely. But there had to be something in the man’s character, too, that allowed his thoughts to move toward what was good not for his party, or his own benefit, but for the country. I cannot think of anyone in public office right now who could pull this off today.

President Bush might have the right “instincts” insofar as thinking first of the nation…but he’d not have the words - he’d move quickly to action, and while action is good, the words need to come first. John Kerry could might or might not have the words, but his first instincts would be to exploit, rather than heal, and nothing in his record indicates he would take action. Bill Clinton, with his rhetorical gifts and quick mind might come closest, but I think even he - as smart as he is - would fall too quickly into his ingrained habits of sly self-promotion, and - Walt Whitman aside - he was never much for poetry. Hillary, when off-script lapses into schoolmarmish lectures punctuated with ‘”you knows”. She couldn’t do this. I think Condoleeza Rice would have all of it in her brain, but would not be able to bring it forth, not on the fly, not coherently.

Rudy Giuliani could approximate it; he could convey the “gist” of it, but not with this language, or with this history. John McCain is a rhetorical plodder; he couldn’t come near it. Ted Kennedy never had his brother’s mind, or his sensibilities.

RFK was just extraordinary. I can’t think of any member of the “black leadership” who could do this. I can’t think of anyone in journalism who could do it, either - no current man or woman of letters. Limbaugh, who can often be both extemporaneous and eloquent, could not approach what Kennedy did.

One reads this and one understands benefit of a vigorous and substantial education in the classics, as opposed to my son’s English class, which spent 4 weeks (!) on Tuesdays with Morrie. But RFK also must have had the gift of introspection, as well, and also a love of reading and poetry. I know he committed a great deal of poetry to memory; I’ve read that about him.

That speech was the speech of a man who habitually spent time alone in reflection and contemplation and -dare I say it - prayer. It’s all there; the evidence of it is there.

Perhaps he was a man of his time, a time when life moved a little bit less quickly, and down-time was not at such a premium, and so introspection was not such a luxury. Perhaps we simply do not take enough time for reflection and contemplation, anymore. We turn on Hardball, or Hannity, or Survivor, and it’s our loss.

How about it, can you think of anyone on the national scene who could pull this off, today?

Over at Moniales, the blog of the Dominican Nuns of Summit, NJ, they’re happily announcing the arrival of two new postulants, and:

We are also looking forward to another postulant who hopes to enter this summer and to 2 aspirants. Please continue to pray for their perseverance and growth in holiness as they immerse themselves into our life of community, prayer, study and work.

Good news.

The Benedictines over at St. Walburga’s in Colorado have put up a history page.

I like this post by Patterico:

As I mentioned the other day, everything made sense to me the second that a commenter at Captain’s Quarters reminded me of a line from an earlier episode this season, in which Bobby and Tony talk about what death must be like: You wouldn’t even know it had happened; everything would just go black. [UPDATE: This article says the line is: “You probably don’t even hear it when it happens.” h/t Patricia.] Under this interpretation, Tony is whacked by someone in the restaurant — probably that creepy guy who went into the bathroom to retrieve a piece, like Michael Corleone. But he doesn’t even know what was happening, and neither do we. Everything just goes black.

I think the interpretation based on the “everything would just go black” line has to be the right one. That line explains perfectly why the screen goes black for several seconds at the end of the show before the credits roll. If this episode were intended to express something about Tony’s life being mundane, or simply full of paranoia, then it would end with a meaningless scene followed simply by the credits. That’s not what happened. There are several seconds of “everything . . . just go[ing] black” — why is that?

To me, that’s an obvious and clear reference back to the conversation between Bobby and Tony. It has the added irony that, indeed, you don’t know what happened. In a sense, the viewer got “whacked” along with Tony.

I think he bought the farm, too. Good piece. I didn’t realize how angry the ending had left some folks.

Related: Is Tony Soprano Dead or Alive?

Some of you may have noticed that I seem a trifle edgy, bitchy, lately - that I just don’t seem like myself as I blog.

No kidding…in r/l I’m not exactly Little Mary Sunshine, either.

A quick example: two weeks ago there was our dog, doing her job, which is to bark ferociously at the UPS guy…and I, instead of simply telling her to calm down and restraining her, began to scream at her to stop barking and shut up!

I mean, I screamed at her. Fishwife, style.

I think the UPS guy wasn’t sure who to fear more, the dog or me.

Related this to my Li’l Bro Thom and he said, “Did the dog look at you as if you say, ‘Jeez, and they call ME a BITCH.’?”

Actually, she kinda did.

There is some hormonal precedent for this behavior. When I was pregnant with my Elder Son, my husband and I went to a lumberyard to look at some teak for a cradle he wanted to build…he never got around to it, but that’s okay…anyway, as we were leaving the lumberyard, there was a big German Shepherd behind the fence, barking and barking at us and I whipped around and barked back, “Shut up! Shut up!”

And the Shepherd shut up and looked at me, like…”ooookkkay, honey…backing away slowly…”

And generally, I like dogs a lot. Even German Shepherds.

I’m flinty with my husband, exasperated and impatient with him for no good reason. This morning he asked me a question and I barked at him and then did a pissy, “you’re not the King, you know!”

To which he gently replied “I know I’m not the king. You’re the king!”

Which cracked me up and made me laugh for the first time in possibly several weeks.

One minute I am screaming, the next I’m weeping, the next I’m cleaning the bathrooms with such compulsive precision as to be worrisome - the next I am saying, “screw dusting, you people don’t like dust? Get the dustcloths out, yourselves!” I am either full of energy or completely exhausted. I am making excuses where I should not, blaming others instead of myself - I am confrontational in ways that are not good. My behavior is brittle, unexpected, uncharacteristic, often unkind, lacking in civility and altogether too, too much. I am mortified at myself, and yes, sometimes ashamed.

My neighbor, who knows about these things and much more, hears my catalogue of woes, torments and nasty moods and confesses that when she was where I’m at she once chased her son (on whom she’s never laid a hand) around the house with a golf club. She says, “helllooooo menopause.”

Well. Crap. I’ve looked forward to menopause since I was 8 1/2 years old…now it comes and…well…good gawd, but I am a hellacious and mad bitch-on-wheels. And more than that. I often hate myself. Menopause seems to be hitting me like two linebackers on a punter - if that’s the right simile - and, if not exactly leading me into sin, then definitely aiding and abetting all my worst impulses. Memory lapses, trouble concentrating (it’s been interesting driving, lately!) And the peeing every time I sneeze thing is getting old, real fast. Fun times.

To put it simply, I’m a little nuts right now. Some of you will doubtless say that is my usual state - and you might not be all wrong at that - but I think we may safely say that I am currently surpassing my ordinary whacked-out standards and breaking personal new ground. I am what Katharine Hepburn would call an “unholy mess of a girl!”

I’m working on it. Looking into HRT, but not liking the idea as much as herbals such as black cohosh, but I know they can be tricky. My instinct is to just tough it out, but we’ll see. I remember my birth mother was a right lunatic while she was going through this (and that’s saying something), and I…well, I am simply not myself.

I’m thinking I may take some down-time in July. Aside from all of this, I also am feeling very out-of-step with so many on so many issues…and I have utterly tired of the politics/partisanship. I’m tired of the fighting back-and-forth, left-and-right. I don’t want to play that game anymore. I’m having enough tussles within myself.

For the rest of June, though…I’ll try to make this place a deal more pleasant, entertaining and hopefully interesting, even without the political. Hope you’ll hang around…but if this has scared you, I understand.

The dog’s a little scared, too.