Let Me Be Clear

The President likes this phrase as a means of indicating that somehow, his message isn't getting through. 

I shall do the same, because it is clear that this is unclear.

I have no objections to our government providing a safety net for the poor, for those who find themselves without the resources to cope with a sudden or progressive or debilitating condition that threatens to rob them not only of life, but of dignity as well, by bankrupting those around them in the struggle to stay alive.  I do believe that we need to provide health care for those who cannot through their employment, manage themselves.  This is part of the function of good moral government. It is in a sense, its only purpose, to create a system of rules and laws that prevent the overflow of chaos, and that also establish a baseline which is an attempt to limit suffering.  Most Catholics including the Bishops as a whole, wanted a government run health care policy expressly for this reason.

But the 2000+page bill that is obamacare, violates our Catholic conscience --it demands things that as Catholics, we can't tacitly accept.

The monstrosity that was upheld yesterday, is a bad plan. It is a bad policy. It is a coercive policy that threatens religious liberty (by the government determining what is and is not a religious insitution, and what moral codes must be ignored to serve the state), and the further demands that grave immoral acts (abortion), be funded by all people of faith who know such acts to be not only sinful but lethal.

To those who start to shout about the Department of Defense, go ahead.   I don't think we should fund the wholesale slaughter of the innocent for grave, casual and all the inbetween rationales that humans can concoct.  I'll join you in saying it's a waste laden department with gobs of good thoughtful people implementing an incoherent policy that reigns death down on strangers for grave, casual and inbetween rationales in our name and probably shouldn't.  I also would submit, we shouldn't be doubling down on this policy by waging war on our own people, destroying them before they could become educated good tax paying citizens for the sake of other citizens who simply declare at the moment, they wish it. 

This healthcare plan like the unmanned drone strikes, changes the game.  We will now fund abortion through taxes without end.  We have been doing it on the sly for years. Now it's out in the open.  It's not better either way. It's wrong either way.  Drone strikes or patriot missles, RU-486 or partial birth or chemical, it's still dealing death without restraint, without reflection, and without any hope of stopping, because our tax dollars never stop being spent, and policy once enacted, seldom gets redacted. 

If no one sees the killing and they aren't reported, it's much easier to pretend we aren't doing evil.  If no one pauses to reflect on the taking of lives because the drones rather than humans are doing the death dealing, we can all pretend we're good moral agents.  I'm a good person even if I slaughter unborn babies on a daily basisBut we all know, what we finance, we support, what we support, we are morally culpable for, what we say to the world with our actions, defines us.  So if we carelessly deal death with indifference, it is clear, we are indifferent to life.  Human life of those not in power, is cheap. Begun, the drone wars have.  We can kill without pesky moral quandries...it's not true, but we tell ourselves that every time we kill.  "Am I my brother's keeper?"  because that's the way we cope with being less human. 

No one with one ounce of moral sense thinks otherwise.  The only ones who glory in killing are those who are mad. The rest of us cope with killing by explaination: self defense, patriotism, protection of those weaker, policy, sustaining law/order, stopping an evil act, or proclaiming the act itself is not evil, is not killing, is a mercy, is a medical necessity, a choice, reasonable thing, hard heart breaking decision, but it is an act of the will that we must endure, there are more, but you get the idea.

I don't want to bow down before this golden idol, this pharoah called government and do what my God has commanded we should not.  I do not want to knowingly fund evil acts.  Torchure is wrong. Abortion is wrong, unmanned drone bombings are wrong, death sentences are wrong...killing is wrong.  Rubberstamp me as Pro-life (that's fine, I'll take that label), but understand that supercedes both sides' short sightedness. 

I want my government to be good.  It cannot be good by doing evil.  Ceasar has declared we must render what should be God's unto Ceasar, and I say no.  And I will say no with my votes and my voice. I will not be silent simply to be polite.  I will not give a blank check to the GOP or the DNC. You both have blood on your hands and you're both committed to demanding that we fund it mindlessly.  This has to stop.  This is not a government of the people, it is a tyranny of party elite and political will over the general public funded by all but those who do not abide by the rules --those who make them.   Let's call the elected officials what they are, aristocrats and petty tyrants who view the rest of us as little flyover people.  Pay your taxes and shut up. We know what's best. 

Ceasar has told us we must do this or we cannot render acts of mercy (care for the sick --Singer (bio-ethicist and advisor to administration, prof at Yale has said, the Catholic hospitals should simply close if they won't comply).   No.  Again, let me be clear.  I say no.   Get stuffed.  We will do good.  We will not comply.  We are being slowly boiled to only allow the goverment to perform the corporeal acts of mercy, such that we shall absolve ourselves of the acts, the obligations to perform such acts and remove ourselves from the graces attached to acting itself.  We will also be corroded by our cooperation with evil.   We cannot not be.  We cannot participate/fund an addiction without being part of the problem.  We cannot participate in bullying without being bullies, we cannot cease to be liars if we allow truth to go unspoken, if we allow lies to go unchallenged. 

We are to comfort the grieving, care for the sick, and do this not because the state declares it a good or because the state provides it, but because God do command that we do it, and not by proxy.  We're responsible for our souls and those around us, for all that we do and don't do, so everything we do and don't do counts.  This counts. 

We're called to care for the unborn and the pregnant mother, care for the sick, the dying and the immigrant, the homeless, the stranger, the people in tents across the world from us and the neighbors next door. We're called to pray ceaselessly, to love ceaseslessly, to serve ceaselessly, to be the Eucharist to others and to seek the Eucharist endlessly. We're to see the nails in the hands of our savior and both weep and rejoice, to know that the metal through the bone is for each of us, and to give great thanks for so great a love. We're to hold sacred the beauty of truth, of love, and to pour it out. There isn't a vacation or end to this mission either, it goes on even after death. Further, we're to be endlessly filled and on this earth unsatisfied. But it doesn't mean we're to be wimps or silent or acquiese to evil in this life. The martyrs were not wimps or defenseless, they were brave beyond measure with how they faced death and why. All they had to do is the perfectly reasonable denial. They didn't.

So let me be clear once more.  No.  We will not comply. But let me propose an alternative, one that will be neither Republican nor Democrat but Catholic. We will pay more. We will offer 40%, if the 40% shall be used to ensure that we do not fund war and we do not fund death as a nation, as a people. We will fund the roads and the hospitals and the research, but we will not fund abortion or death from the skies. We will turn the other cheek, offer our shirt, give more to make the society one that does better than the least amount possible, we want our country and our people to be a people of light and life.    Come. Take more if you must. (I'll even give it freely if less gracefully than the saints do).  But do not do perpetuate this grave evil in our name with all that you take.

Pray hard for our country, for leaders who recognize that while we need to provide for the 33 million, (and we do), we also need to do justice by all our citizens, and not destroy the unborn as the price for the 33 million. We need to always do both and --it is the nature of Catholicism, that both and...prayer and service, words and deeds, what is done and not done. Body and blood, bread and wine, soul and divinity. We are never not called to acknowledge the reality is both and. We must be clear.  To be Catholic, we will radically not comply because we cannot do less. 

The Monster Within

It is a well established but seldom discussed fact.  Babies are the only socially acceptable psychopaths. 

Having spent the last 19 years around people who for (in many cases) at least two years, bossed me around without ever speaking, I have layers of experience to back this up.  I'm certain it isn't only my genetic back ground that creates people who think the world exists for them alone, and that frankly, the world is not doing a very good job. 

This morning, the littlest Diva awoke displeased.   She cried during her private bath.  She cried getting dressed.  She cried as she slumped into her plush lamb recliner that vibrates and plays music.  She got mad when I turned off the vibrations and music even though she'd left the chair.  

Going into my bedroom to fetch shoes put her decidedly out.  She knocked on the door.  Her father opened the door.  She looked at him.  "Do you want to come in?" he asked.  She studied him in all seriousness and shook her head "No."  and shut the door in disgust.

Two minutes later there was a knock.  I opened it this time.  "Do you want to come in?" I asked.
"Mom!" she answered and grappled both my legs to make sure not only she had me, but that I couldn't possibly get away. 

This situation led to a momentary abatement of her bad mood.  But sooner or later, I had to  put her down, and this was simply not accepable.  The moment her feet touched the ground, she began that I cannot stand motif. 

I do not know how it is that she can do a three point stance on her back with her head being one of the three points, but trust me that if she is sufficiently irritated, this is her go to means of expressing it.  Cirque de Soliel might be in her future.  After a few high pitched screams while in the stance, she looked over at me and put her two middle fingers in her mouth.  It is a perfect symbol of this child's psyche.  It is how you sign "I love you." It is also how hard metal ethusiasts say "Rock on!" It feels a bit like a sign of irritation as well.  I guess it is a sort of mood ring sign, with the implications being clear based on emotional context.   She is fluent in establishing emotional context.

Her ire continued through breakfast, with my oldest son attempting to act as a substitute for me.  Generic brands work in many circumstances, like white bread, canned tomatoes and sugar based cereal.  However they should not be used if you want diet soda, frozen pizza or chocolate.  He's a great big brother but the goddess was clearly not digging this turn of events as I took care of those other people that live here.

However she has two other great loves.  Shoes and Technology.  Sensing the potential for further disruptions, he handed her two new white slippers designated for the wedding and let her sit at his computer.  Even this was not enough.  She tried me on my lap with my lap top. This too failed to satisfy.  We thought we were done for until she toddled over to the television and sat down.  Dora did what a computer, shoes, breakfast, a bath, a chair, Dad, Mom, a big brother, a bottle, a blanket and two computers could not.  She sat.  For five minutes.  I was feeling smug. The baby empress was soothed.  TV....yeah...she sat.  For three minutes.

But the big brother wanted a victory. He did not like the TV trumping him. He went to his laptop and pulled up a youtube of Mecha-King Ghidorah music.  She ran to him. She got on his lap. She stood grinning at him.  She smiled. She laughed. She danced. She clapped.  All was well.  This was her true nature.   And I was left to puzzle out the meaning of all this, for her future and mine.  Her bad mood had in effect, crossed what is lovingly referred to in television as The Gozilla Threshold. In both a emotional and literal sense, the only solution for this small rampaging toddler, is a large radioactive nuclear monster.

What I didn't realize was that this:

was her attempt to illustrate this:

The genetic nerdiness that is in my family is apparently far deeper than I imagined.   I remain profoundly disturbed.

The Day My Washer became Scrap Metal

I have to say, I think the machine deserves a few words. A eulogy or a poem, some sort of tribute is due.   There ought to be some sort of service for the service rendered by a machine that has been with us only since 2007, but which was subjected to daily and sometimes double daily, and sometimes triple or even quadruple daily duty.  My dryer died three weeks ago and I suspect my washing machine at the time thought, "We can do that?" 

So Friday, it made  a terrific noise, like a jet engine preparing for take off.  Honestly, I came over because whatever it was, I knew it wasn't good.  I opened the machine to find the rim was off and suspected much more.  But I could fix the rim so I did.  For two days I observed said machine and while it took in clothes and water and soap, it did not get the clothes clean.  It did not rotate the drum.  So I had an odd Neapolitan mix of dry clothes on top, damp clothes in the middle and sopping wet stuff on the bottom.  I could spin the drum and flip the pile at intervals to keep up appearances and sort of wash the stuff, but I knew a repairman was in my future.
I hate calling repairmen. 

I hate when they come and a thirty second search and fifteen cent part later, they are charging me 60-100 dollars for said repair.   I also hate calling them and an hour later having them pronounce my machine dead and also give me a bill for 60-100 dollars for the diagnosis as deceased.  I never feel like I get my money's worth. 

The pediatricians give out stickers at the end of an appointment and the dentists give out tooth brushes whether or not you had a cavity.  My thinking is, if the appliance is dead, the service man ought to at least play taps or offer you the cathartic option to use their heaviest hammer on said dead machine to get out some frustrations.   Like "Why is it you are crapping out on me?  I've been doing the laundry for ages. I fold everything you wash and I'm not falling apart!"  Though one might argue that this quote alone proves that at least something in me has deteriorated in the past 45 years of living.

So I'm here today to bid farewell to the Bousch Nexxt 500 high efficiency machine.  It did its job as long as I did mine.   I never loved it, but I hate it now.   I do not appreciate its exquisite timing, knowing that we were planning a trip and that I now get to lug laundry to be washed at the mat and needed another errand this week.  It was work while it worked.  It is still work, now that it is not working.  

I shall drink a glass of wine and eat cake.  These extra carbs shall result in my hips having a permanent record of the end of said machine's service.  I resent that too.   Adeiu Bousch!  We shall not meet again. 

P.S. Now my dish washer is acting up.