Really Super Supernatural Stuff

First of all, I want to thank everyone who left a comment on my previous entry and/or prayed for me, my family, and my mother. A HUGE thank you. I need to re-read all those comments - and I will - but like the many sympathy cards I have received, it's all overwhelming right now.

By the way, whoever mentioned about the snowflakes/hell thing not really being Fatima - a massive thank you. Ditto for the Padre Pio comments about his great-grandfather. I need to re-visit and think all that through, too, because I'm struggling with the whole aspect of my mother having an "unprovided death." But that can wait until later.

So anyway, today is just a little over a week since my Mom died. I'm holding up pretty well, all things considered, and also considering that I'm sick with a hack-my-guts-out type of thing, which makes me feel even more weak and vulnerable than I already am. Sort of freaked out that maybe I caught it from my step-father, who gave it to my mother, who then died when she got it. But I won't think about that right now. (Except I have to, since my step-father was still sick with it at the funeral.)

Pretty much, I'm numb. It isn't real to me yet and it doesn't seem possible that it is. I mean, there is NO WAY that my mother is dead, right?

I'm probably going through all the textbook emotions and behaviors one would expect. Like today, I had a fairly normal and even happy day, but then came home to face the reality of: IT HAPPENED AND YOU CAN'T IGNORE IT. And then feeling guilty that my every thought today wasn't on my mother. Note that the prevailing numbness is what even allowed for me to have a happy day. So, yes, I'm grateful for the happy day, but I'm still conscious of what lies not far underneath the surface. You know, things like not being able to get the image of my mother dead in a casket out of my head. Amongst many other psychological/emotional/existential turmoils.

But there's this really intriguing, amazing silver lining sort of thing to my mother's death. I want so much to explain it here on the blog, but I fear that I won't be taken seriously or that putting it into words out in the wide open of the blogosphere will cheapen it. Yet it's compelling enough that it really ought to be explained, almost as a testimony to the reality of God and the supernatural realm.
,
If you have a heart and sensitivity to the Spirit of God, you will hopefully find the story I soon plan to tell here just as amazing as we have. And then maybe you can help me to figure out what my next step is supposed to be. Because I feel pretty lost right now. As I've been telling anyone who asks, I don't know who or what I'm supposed to be, and every day so far I wake up wondering what the heck my life means.

My Heart Is Breaking

Saturday morning my mother was found dead. She had a bad respiratory-type cold or flu, went to bed, and never woke up.

I am devastated, my heart is breaking, and I am convulsed with grief.

I never talked much about my Mom here because she read my blog, too. Believe me, she was a core person in my life, a life-line, and I loved her so very, very much.

I am sharing because I need prayers, my family needs prayers, and because (excuse my candidness here) every stupid freaking doomsday thing I've ever heard about Fatima and any other guilt-inducing Catholic teaching I know about death is going through my head and causing me massive anxiety.

No, she wasn't a practicing Catholic anymore. Yes, she considered herself Catholic. Yes, she believed in God and Christ. She also believed in angels and in her guardian angel, specifically.

I feel like a part of me has died.

I have seen my son crying copious tears and yelling, "God, bring her back!" I have also heard him say that "God will bring her back to life, right?" I don't know how to handle this.

The funeral is Wednesday. Crappy, small obituary will be in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel tomorrow. There's a long obit getting published somewhere, but I don't know where. Of course, me being the writer in the family, I wrote both of them. That sucked - how do you do an entire person's life justice? You can't.

This is going to be a long week. Right now I am at my son's school, which is exactly where I wanted to be today - surrounded by loving, caring people who know all the right (non-cliche) things to say. But more getting-ready-for-funeral stuff later today.

I am so, so tired. My eyes are stinging from crying, my head is exploding with pain from crying, and I'm really hungry but feel like I want to puke at the same time.

I didn't get to say goodbye to her. I can't stand it. I have regrets about how little I was in contact with her during the last month - you know, life - you get too busy with your own stuff, and Mom who is always there for you, she'll be there for you still when you get around to calling her, right?

Wrong. Say "I love you" NOW.

So Much Depressing News: Abusive Priests, Homeschool Haters, and Pedophiles

On some interior level, I actually am in a decent mood today. Gramma has Alan for a few days, the very last of the snow should be melted by the end of the day - given that it's about 55 degrees and sunny and birds chirping - and I'm excited to be going on a family religious retreat this weekend.

But my Facebook feed? Oh my! How depressing!

In addition to the pseudo(?) threat of nuclear attack from North Korea, we have:

-Potential attacks on homeschooling via the Federal Common Core curriculum. In this particular case, via "small changes" that could affect homeschool families who let their kids participate in sports at a public school. (By the way, I have some very personal concerns about this Common Core stuff....if you know anything real and legitimate about it, would you please fill me in?) Also, as someone mentioned in a Facebook commbox, there is talk of slanting the ACT and SAT tests towards the Core Curriculum so that homeschoolers would be forced to use that curriculum in order to pass the tests. Oh, by the way, did you hear that Saxon Math is supposedly going to twist their curriculum to fit with the Common Core?

-Potential attacks on homeschooling via teachers unions. Surprise? Not. It's never been about the kids or academic excellence/freedom.

-California lawmakers actually entertaining the idea of letting pedophilia be an accepted, defined sexual orientation, which opens up an entire pandora's box of problems. This scares me, people.

What else?

Well, it's kind of weird that I'm sharing this, but.....For years I have been entertaining the idea of letting someone in our archdiocese know that my ex-husband (now deceased) claimed to have been sexually abused by a priest. Today I looked into the idea more. Here's what I found: 

-My favorite CCD priest when I was in grade school? On the list of accused pedophile priests.

-The priest who married my Mom and Dad? Though deceased, he's on the list in a different state.

-Since the1950's, there has pretty much never been a time that the Catholic church I mostly attended as a kid and teenager didn't have a pedophile priest on staff.

-The priest who I think(?) is the one who abused my ex-husband? The other accusers against him accuse him of doing this stuff IN the confessional!

SO DEPRESSING!!!!!

All of this information was readily available on the internet, by the way. The stories are sad; the number of parishes these priests got moved around to is staggering. Granted, it's a small number of men (oops, there was one female nun) who did all this, but when you sit down and look at the entire list for one diocese and read the details, it's just.....depressing.

So anyway, here's my question: Is it worth it to report what happened to my ex-husband, given that he is deceased and I don't have the details except the year-range and the place where it happened? The priest who may(?) have been the one is still alive, and in fact, is trying to appeal his case to remain a priest in good standing. I mean, it's not like my information is going to open up a new case, since there is no one to provide any legitimate proof anymore.

Yet deep down I have always felt this pull toward justice. I've been divorced from him for 20 years now, but it has never left my mind that someone should know. Like if there was just one *asterisk in the file with "unsubstantiated allegations" in my ex's name, I would feel better. Because I know what he suffered and what it did to him - and also, in a roundabout way - what it did to me, as well as his first wife. It terrified him in his dreams (frequent nightmares) and led him down the road to, you know, immoral behavior of a certain type, and he HATED himself for it. 

Then again, I know one has to tread lightly in cases like this. I don't want to heap hurt onto some priest who might, perhaps, be innocent anyway? I'm not the judge or jury on this one, by any means. But then again, what if what I know, no matter how general it is, does put a piece of the puzzle in place so that justice and scandal can be addressed?

I'd like to mention here that the whole clergy sex abuse scandal has never once made me think of leaving the Church. In fact, I came back to the Church when it was in full media swing. But see, I have hung out with so many homosexuals in my life that I'm not phased by them and their attendant issues and proclivities. I see pedophile priests for what they are and were: homosexuals hiding in the priesthood, even if a few of them really were legitimately spiritual people who loved the Church at the same time. Also, one must (again) factor in that I live in Milwaukee, home of Archbishop Rembert Weakland, so do the math.

Well, anyway, sometimes it feels like sanity and common sense are under attack. That's how I feel today.

Merry Easter?

I swear it's getting worse every year.

I always start looking for it around Valentine's Day. And that's because I recall each year, as a child, listening to Milwaukee DJ "Larry the Legend" talking about it right around that time, when he let people call in and report the names and addresses of neighbors who hadn't yet taken down their Christmas decorations. And then Larry the Legend would turn around and call these people - live on the radio - to embarrass them, asking them why they hadn't yet taken them down?

Valentine's Day, today? That ain't nothing anymore; no one bats an eye.

Even yesterday, a day after Easter, I saw them all over the place as I drove across town: Christmas decorations hung on porches, plastic Santas in yards, and Christmas wreaths brown and dead still hanging on the front door. And it's not just in my town - it's all over the metro Milwaukee area, which I drive in and around and through multiple times a day, at least five or more days a week.

What is wrong with people? This past week I thought, at least, people would realize that Easter was in a few days, and so then they'd finally go outside and take down the Christmas stuff.

Nope.

I have this figured out, though. Tell me if you agree or not.

While I will allow some leeway for the fact that Wisconsin is cold and snowy and miserable for many months following Christmas, and people just don't want to go out and freeze their butts off taking down Christmas decorations in a foot of snow, I believe this is all about the secular nature of our culture which values Christmas, but ignores Easter. (By the way, we still have snow here, so I hope the Easter Bunny was wearing a coat!)

Seriously, though. Everyone gets these warm fuzzies about Christmas, especially since it's all about the gift-giving, right? People of all religions and faiths celebrate Christmas - oops, I mean the Holidays - because Christmas is about anything you want it to be, as long as it's about family and friends and "the spirit of the season," which is giving - oops - I mean GETTING.

But there's not much to be got for Easter. Which is why I believe there are many, many more people than we imagine who sit around doing jack sh*t nothing on Easter Sunday. And that's because it's pretty hard to ignore that Easter is absolutely, positively about Christ and Christianity. It's inherent in the whole thing and the hypocrisy of celebrating this holiday without having a vested interest in Christianity is obvious. Whereas the hypocrisy of ignoring the birth of Christ at Christmas is something our culture has long ago come to terms with.

On Easter Sunday, as we were leaving to go to mass, I noticed that the parking lot at our local grocery store was PACKED. Note that you wouldn't see that on Christmas Day, because everything on the planet is shut down. Thus, I imagine that if we had driven past a Wal-Mart on Sunday, we would have seem the same: a parking lot full of cars, given that a huge percentage of people in our culture see Easter Sunday as no different than any other day. Well, save for maybe some kind relative who invites you over for a nice dinner that you show up for and then leave, wondering what you should do for the rest of the day?

Hey, I know! Let's have a beer! Watch a basketball game! Here in Wisconsin, Easter Sunday is big business in the bars and clubs. Because it's such a sacred day and all.

Am I wrong about this?

Oh sure, there are secular people who make Easter a day about getting the kids out for an Easter egg hunt, and hiding an Easter basket, and maybe a nice Easter brunch. Akin to the secular Christmas holiday folks, who are nominally Christian for five minutes twice a year. But without the prospect of gifts to go around for everyone (that means the adults, too) I believe many people today just forgo Easter all together, since there's nothing in it for them.

And this is why I think there are so, so many Christmas decorations still hanging around out there. People just don't care about Easter, it has no meaning for them, so there's no reason to take them down. They'll wait until they have to mow the lawn for the first time or when Mom complains that she'd like them taken down and put away as a Mother's Day gift.

In my lifetime, as is already the case, I expect more and more to see Easter marginalized and de-emphasized, as our culture increasingly finds Christianity irrelevant or something to be hostile towards. Easter will instead continue to evolve into a spring festival of renewal (as was explicitly stated as the meaning of Easter on Alan's copy of "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown!"), which means people can take it or leave it. At best, it will be a Sunday off for some and a plate of ham over at Aunt Mary's house.

So sad.

Did You Ever Have a Lent Like This?

By accident, a couple of weeks ago, John and I were in bed late one night and stumbled upon the movie Chocolat while flipping through the TV channels. Fortunately, it had just started, and so we thoroughly enjoyed watching it all over again.

Anyone reading this who has seen the film more than once (as I have) is astute enough to figure out that in addition to the film just generally being a delight, that this movie appeals to me on more than one level, especially in the sense that the Catholic struggle takes place in the storyline. Hilariously so; a great illustration of traditional phariseeism gone bad.

Anyway, remember the scene on the Saturday night before Easter morning? Remember what the mayor did and how he was found on Easter morning?

Yeah, that's pretty much me in the last two weeks. Most everything I vowed for Lent has broken down and went out the door. The gorging on chocolate and passing out in the patisserie window? Not so symbolic.

I believe many of us - perhaps most of us - give in, crash, lose interest, or just give up on various Lenten promises and ideals. And I sort of think that's the point - that you can't do it yourself.

The good news is that this is Holy Week, and even if I still don't keep my Lenten promises, I can take part in liturgy all week and walk with Christ. The bad news? I just want Easter to be here, so keep the chocolate (or wheat, or carbs, or fill in the blank) coming.

I'm glad that I don't know anyone foolish enough to openly proclaim that they have kept Lent perfectly, because if they did so, I think I'd want to sock them.

Likewise

This past week, Catholic blogger Mark Shea posted the following on his Facebook page:

"So yesterday I posted some snippy memes griping about people who are griping at the new Pope. I don't think they helped anything and were not kind or peaceable. I thought better of it and took them down. Mea culpa to all I hurt or offended. Let's start Holy Week in peace."

My response? Exactly! and Likewise!

So maybe all my posts about the TRAD response to the new Pope weren't the most helpful or charitable. But I leave them stand because I still think they make points that need to be made and considered.

However, I have deleted a few other things from my blog today. A long time ago I read some "Blogging for Dummies" sort of book, and it was saying that it's unethical to take down previously-written blog posts or to significantly edit/amend what you've already written. I believed that book for a long time, but now have decided that in the spirit of Christianity (thoughtfulness, examination of conscience, detraction, forgiveness, etc., etc.) that such advice only makes sense for very secular/worldly blogs. 

So, I thank Mark Shea for his example, and state here that I reserve the right to take down anything that makes me feel bad, that I regret, that makes me anxious, or that in retrospect wasn't well thought-out, and even might have been pure garbage from the start!

Next: To everyone who emailed me and messaged me on Facebook disappointed that I blocked them from the blog or uninvited them, please remember that this is NOT the old blog. Thus, there are NO invites out there in the first place, so no one was uninvited or blocked. All I did was turn the blog off because 1.) A troll appeared that I didn't feel like dealing with, and 2.) I got mad at myself for things I wrote that weren't being received that way I wanted. 

I know! Wah! Wah! Wah!

Believe it or not, I often don't think I have the spine necessary for blogging, even though it's approaching five years of this. More specifically, the spine necessary to take the heat for the very opinionated things I say. If such a statement surprises you, recall the hell we have been through with my husband's co-workers over the old blog and do the math. (They haven't found this one yet, but hey, give it time! Ha!) And actually, there is MORE HELL that we were put through, but I couldn't blog about it for obvious reasons, and never will. You all don't even know how bad it got!

So anyway, as always, this blog is a journey and a work-in-progress, with plenty of f'ups to spread around.

The Velveteen Rabbit.....

 .....always makes me cry. I am such a soft-hearted sap, but no one knows it.