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Memories Stored

BiblioCavee

Evangelical Pastafarianism

How do we store our memories? I love this photo as it so depicts the way many of us store our photos, and sometimes letters or thoughts. I’ve written in the margins not only to comment or argue with the writer, but also to capture the way the author’s words or sentences send me on a rollercoaster of my own.

The other day I came across a card my mother sent some many years ago. It was in a book I’d gone back to for a needed quote. I can tell the span of years wherein her thoughts were sent to me by the ones she includes in her comments. Or by the questions: How is Angela doing in first grade? How is the dog doing? All healed from the operation? Did you make the spice tea for the theatre group? And oh my! what a flood of memories those words unleashed. Overwhelming.

Sure I have boxes of photos, some actual albums and dates and times and events. But how sweet to open a past loved book, and find within, the stored memories of a life lived long ago. It’s like a phone call from the past. For a few brief minutes we are transported to that world and we see that face, hear the laughter, and feel the kisses deep.

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Unnamed Unsaid

“If you understand,
things are just as they are…
If you do not understand,
things are just as they are…”

~Zen Saying

Tao&Zenn

TaoNzen

Tao & Zen

 

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Jigidie Jig

Home again, home again…

I’ve returned from a brief sojourn in Columbus, Clintenville. Tula and I went to visit my daughter and Sullivan (my grandog). We had a most lovely time and adventure on the boat, visiting small beaches, swimming in Alum Park Lake, having sandwiches delivered to a dock for lunch. Pictures should have been taken no doubt, but weren’t. It’s difficult for me to take photos in the midst of things as it can take you so outside of the moment or moments you are enjoying. That means photos will have to come in some future to be named later. When we do a drive by on the way to other things. When the intention is to take photos and that itself is the purpose.

Meanwhile, photos from Artistic Nature as we move on in this summer of heat and shimmer, sun and shade.

artNartwk1artNartwk2artNartwk3

 

 

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The Point Is…

ThePointGeneJPuskar:AP

The sun sets behind a church in the Pittsburgh Diocese, one of six dioceses mentioned in the massive report on sexual abuse among Pennsylvania clergy.
Gene J. Puskar/AP

Over 300 priests in Pennsylvania, and yet the true number?—over 1,000. Guilty. Abuse, coverups, transfers, whole families, boys and girls. And this is one state. Are there any innocents left?

Why has the Catholic Church not been shut down? Doors closed? Priests, Bishops, Cardinals, Popes, if not tried in courts of law, stripped of their protecting garments?

Protection and propagation is offered from a church that exhumed a buried Pope in order to take him to justice. (Or injustice.) Pope Stephen VIII tried the dead Pope Formosus in the Cadaver Synod, 897 ce. The corpse played an actual part. Can we assume he was found guilty?

If anyone has not seen The Keepers, on Netflix, please do so. The Church is not above any act, including murder, to protect the Brotherhood of Abuse. All levels of government and the Church are involved.

“The findings [Grand Jury] revealed a pattern of abuse that occurred in hundreds of parishes in 54 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties going back at least 80 years. It detailed how fellow clergy members conducted shoddy investigations into sexual abuse allegations and how bishops often sided with abusive priests.”
Heard on All Things Considered

How is it that all Catholics are not rebelling? And yet, I’ve heard the retort, for the lesser crimes spoken by nuns in their dark habits, knees blistered from kneeling, hands scrubbed raw. Is it not difficult to get out that damn spot?

The Pope does not speak for God, as God, unless he speaks ex cathedra (from The Chair, the Papal Chair). Then, and only then, does the Pope represent God. God will not let him speak wrongly. They are the very words of God.

It is easy to say then, the abuse, the silence, the coverups, were not the acts of the true Catholic Clergy, the most Catholic and Holy Pope of the Catholic Church. Ergo, the Church is innocent. 

And this is where Faith comes in. Reason will not get you there. 

I am embarrassed to say that I raised my children Catholic. I said the rosary every night in bed. I prayed the souls out of Purgatory on All Hallows Eve. Mea Culpa. Mea Maxima Culpa.

I still regret not saving the beautifully illustrated Seven Deadly Sins.

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Covers & Other Strangers

sueFitzmaurice

Book Covers. The key to the within. I do believe that covers sell the book. Well that and good reviews and publicity about it. It’s all of a package. This has been well documented and substantiated.

Then along comes a cover such as the one above. Tantalizing to me, a Recovering Catholic. I am so drawn to the icons of my youth, the passions for my lost Saints. This cover pointed the way to a journey if not a pilgrimage. Naturally it required a lookup on Amazon. (Buying or not from the big A, it offers reviews, book information, and a look inside at the Prose.) Some of the book information—78 pages!—stopped me short. Not something I’m willing to invest in, considering the subject. So there you have it, the package. And no pictures! Covers alone just won’t do. Nice cover, no sale.