Reflections on the two greatest commandments

I reflected on this passage from the New Testament yesterday, which was the gospel reading at mass, after listening to the priest's sermon yesterday morning. 

Matthew 22:36–40

[36] “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” [37] And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. [38] This is the great and first commandment. [39] And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. [40] On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” 

In these unsettling days of political rancor and vitriol, I thought about what the first commandment means for each of us. The priest said it best. It means that every aspect of our daily lives is infused with a love of God. Every aspect. That means that we live aligned with the precepts of God. We live aligned with the life of Jesus. It is the goal of our short life on this earth. It was the way that the priest said it that made me sit up and take notice. Every aspect of our life should be infused with an awareness of God, in the sense that what we are doing at any given moment could be an opportunity for the recognition of God in our lives. God is in the wings of our daily activities. God is the background, God shows us how to love. It means being aware, awake, having a good heart, being kind, humble, and respectful, and willing to serve others, because by being all these things, we show our love for God and for ourselves. That makes possible the second commandment, to love our neighbors as ourselves. Because it is not possible to love others without first loving God and then ourselves. That love of self is what provides the basis for all other earthly love. Love of God comes first, and because God loves us, we can love ourselves, and can thus love our neighbors. 

We are not loving God, ourselves, or our neighbors when we promote hatred and deliberately seek turmoil, when we are instigators of hate and vitriol in our lives and the lives of others. I have known a number of Catholics up through the years who felt that their church attendance on Sundays made them good Catholics. The other six days of the week they could do and say as they liked. They could make racist statements, be foul-mouthed, could behave unethically at work if necessary (the ends justify the means), and could be aggressive, domineering and even violent toward family members. I cannot presume to know the mind of God, but I have a hard time as a human being understanding that church attendance alone made them good Catholics. Yet I've never, in all my years of church attendance, heard this theme discussed in a sermon. Why? Why are priests afraid to take up this topic? Nowadays, the same can be said for the anti-abortionists; if you are anti-abortion, you are a good Catholic/Christian. But if you are against social welfare plans for taking care of young children in need, elderly people in need, sick people and disabled people in need, when you criticize sick people for being lazy, where are your Christian values then? Doesn't being pro-life mean being pro-all life? 

My father used to quote GK Chesterton, who said that The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried. My father passed away nearly forty years ago, and my mother over twenty years ago. They were both Christian people who tried in the best way they knew how to instill Christian values in their children. They never had much money, never owned a home, and were never the top dogs in the workplace. But they were good, solid people, with solid values and kind hearts. I cannot ever remember them verbally attacking people of other races and creeds. They were not foul-mouthed people. They were generous and hospitable and literate, interested in good books and good conversation. Were they perfect? No. But they were people who were aware of the presence of God in their daily lives. I've written a lot about my parents through the years and will continue to do so. They are my inspiration when it comes to living a Christian life. 

My laugh for today

Thank you, Stephan Pastis!

The four important F's

My friend Cindy, who is a retired minister, sends me different spiritual and inspirational reflections as she comes across them and thinks I might like them. She sent me this little piece of wisdom a few weeks ago that I've shared further with other friends. It's essentially a statement of what is important in life, lest we forget at times. 

FAITH, FAMILY, FRIENDS, FITNESS

Basically all the things we need to have a good life, not a good materialistic life, but a good spiritual life. Again, no judgment as far as materialism goes, but when we have all we need in that department and still feel unfulfilled, why is that? It's what Matthew Kelly calls 'the want beyond the want'. We want more than a materialistically-comfortable life. We want a family that we love and that loves us, likewise good friends whom we love and who love us. And then there is our faith in God, which underlies all of the other things. Our faith shows us the importance of real love for others, and for ourselves. Our bodies should reflect self-care, not in an obsessive way, but in a respectful way. Don't abuse, overuse, or overdo anything that could harm the body. Physical fitness goes hand in hand with mental and spiritual fitness. It's a good place to start to get in touch with what we really want. God gives us all we need to get started. We simply have to pay attention to the call, to get outdoors, to walk, to appreciate the beauty of nature, to do something that gives us balance and peace. We have to have faith that we are important to others and to God. We are. 

Autumn wanderings in Oslo

It's been a mild autumn so far, with temperatures in the 50s, and that's fine with me. Anything to stave off the arrival of the winter season. After last winter, I'm dreading the arrival of this year's winter. Not that winter is a bad thing in and of itself, but it brings with it a whole host of problems that Oslo doesn't seem to tackle very well--unshoveled snowy sidewalks, icy sidewalks, icy side streets, etc. That means being stuck inside more than being outdoors. I'd opt for a mild rainy winter at this point just to avoid all those problems. 

I'm pretty much finished prepping the garden for winter, so that leaves more time during the day for walks around the city. I was out walking a few days ago on a lovely sunny day, and I took some photos on my walking tour. And today my husband and I walked up along the Akerselva river through Myraløkka park, and then down again where we stopped for waffles and coffee at Hønse Lovisas house. A beautiful fall day in Oslo! Here are some photos of Oslo in the autumn. Enjoy!

my garden in autumn

St. Hanshaugen Park

St. Hanshaugen Park

St. Hanshaugen Park

Akerselva river 

Myraløkka park 

Myraløkka

Akerselva river near Hønse Lovisas house

Waffles and coffee at Hønse Lovisas house

Ila church in Ila Park 

Another good one

 

Spot on, as always

Stephan Pastis never ceases to amaze. For those of you who dread the upcoming election, this one's for you.....

Matthew Kelly's mission is to get us back on track

I just finished Matthew Kelly's The Three Ordinary Voices of God, and can heartily recommend it. It is an inspirational short book that focuses on learning to listen to the voices through which God communicates with us. Those voices are our needs, talents, and desires. Kelly's main point is that we live in a noise-filled society that distracts us at every turn. Just think social media, news, materialism, emphasis on worldly success, the newest gadgets--the list is long. All of them encourage us to ignore the important voices that want our attention. In a non-judgmental way, Kelly prods us to pay attention before it is too late. His fear (for himself and for us) is that we will mis-live our lives and not become the 'best versions of ourselves'. That we will waste our lives on non-essential things rather than the essential things. We can only become the best versions of ourselves if we 'let go and let God', if we ask God to show us what he wants for our lives. His appeal to readers at the end of the book is to 'come to the quiet', because it is only then that we can hear and pay attention to the voices of God and discover the 'want beyond the want' (we are never really satisfied when we get what we think we want), which is God. His words resonate with me and many others because he knows how difficult it is to pay attention to the voices of God (our needs, talents, and desires) in a society that is constantly distracting us and pulling us in all directions. It is his opinion that most people don't know what they want and don't know who they are or what they're made for. He's on a mission to wake us up and get us back on track. He doesn't want us to waste our lives. Because in his view, society as it is now will drag us down and prevent us from moving toward God.  

I was reminded of Mary Oliver's poem The Summer Day; the last two lines ask 'Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?' Indeed--a very good question. Mary Oliver was acutely aware of the natural life around her; she paid attention to it and to her needs, talents and desires. She wrote “To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work". Not unlike what Matthew Kelly says. However, unlike Kelly, she was not part of an organized religion (Kelly is a committed Catholic), but she had a special relationship with God. 

My question is--how can one go through life and not pay attention? There is so much to pay attention to. We live in a marvelous world that can inspire and energize us. Even if you are not a person of faith, you can seek silence and watch and listen to the world around you. It has so much to teach us. I never tire of learning, and I think will serve me well as I move into my later years. I can sit silently in my garden and watch the sparrows approach me tentatively, hoping for a handout (they usually get one).  During hot dry summers, I've learned that the sparrows and bees will line up on the bird bath in order to drink water. Who knew? Who knew that sparrows like to bathe communally? These are just a few small observations about the natural life I see in my garden. I find God in my garden because I have hours of quiet in order to do so. What about the dearest people in my life, without whom I would not be who I am today? I love them, and it would not occur to me to ignore them. I thank God everyday for them. I am still working on becoming an essentialist, on cutting away all that is non-essential in my life. I know it is and will always be a work in progress. We are not perfect and will never reach perfection on this earth. But books like Kelly's remind us that it's possible to change, to turn our lives around. Sometimes in order to effect change, we just need to change a small thing each day. For example, make a little time for silence. Go to the quiet. It's a good place to start. 

A commentary on the presidential election from Stephan Pastis

How apt--and how true.....

A Tale of Two Rivers, revisited

Today, as I was walking along the Akerselva river and enjoying the autumn feeling all around me, I remembered a post that I had written back in 2010, the first year of my blog. Fourteen years ago this past July, I wrote A Tale of Two Rivers--A New Yorker in Oslo: A Tale of Two Rivers (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com)--about the Hudson and Akerselva rivers. The post got noticed by the Nyack News & Views and they wrote a short article about it--As Others See Us: From Hudson To Herring - Nyack News & Views (nyacknewsandviews.com). Needless to say, that made my day back then, and still does...

September in New York--photos

As promised, some photos of my recent trip to New York. I'm including photos of the High Line, One World Trade Center, the NY Botanical Gardens,Tarrytown, and Pawling. 

Map of the High Line

walking along the High Line

 garden and plants along the High Line 

Sculpure along the High Line

One World Trade Center

It's impossible to not love NY--there is no place like it in the world 

On a clear day, you can see the Manhattan skyline from Hastings

The NY Botanical Gardens--Alice in Wonderland exhibition

I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date. No time to say hello, goodbye, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late

The newly-renovated lighthouse and the new Tappan Zee bridge in Tarrytown

a bookstore in Pawling

town square in Pawling

The tragedy sniffers as described by Charles Bukowski

The more I read Charles Bukowski's writings, the more I like them. He can definitely be crude, rude and abrasive. But his prose-poetry touches on some really timely and interesting themes. Like this poem, They Are Everywhere, which could describe a lot of what goes on in society at present. Why all the anger? 

They are everywhere

The tragedy-sniffers are all

about

they get up in the morning

and begin to find things

wrong

and they fling themselves

into a rage about

it,

a rage that lasts until

bedtime,

where even there

they twist in their

insomnia,

not able to rid their

mind

of the petty obstacles

they have

encountered.

They feel set against,

it’s a plot.

And by being constantly

angry they feel that

they are constantly

right.

You see them in traffic

honking wildly

at the slightest

infraction,

cursing,

spewing their

invectives.

You feel them

in lines

at banks

at supermarkets

at movies,

they are pressing

at your back

walking on your

heels,

they are impatient to

a fury.

They are everywhere

and into

everything,

these violently

unhappy

souls.

Actually they are

frightened,

never wanting to be

wrong

they lash out

incessantly 

it is a malady

an illness of

that

breed.

The first one

I saw like that

was my

father

and since then

I have seen a

thousand

fathers,

ten thousand

fathers

wasting their lives

in hatred,

tossing their lives

into the

cesspool

and

ranting

on.

Charles Bukowski

September in New York

My annual trip to New York this year was taken a bit later than usual. I normally travel during the last week of August/first week of September, but this year, in connection with a high school reunion that was scheduled for Saturday September 21st, I arrived in New York on September 18th. My friend Judy, who lives in Oregon, also planned to attend the reunion, so we decided to meet in Manhattan for two days before heading north for our reunion. We stayed at the Warwick Hotel on West 54th Street, where I stayed last year when I met my friend Cindy who flew in from Illinois for a visit. On the first day of our two days together, Judy and I walked the 1.45 mile-long High Line (Visitor Info | The High Line) in perfect weather--sunny and warm, and then walked down to the Memorial (The Memorial | National September 11 Memorial & Museum (911memorial.org) at the site of the former World Trade Center Twin Towers, where we visited the Pools and then the Oculus (Oculus Transportation Hub | World Trade Center (officialworldtradecenter.com). The following day we walked through Central Park starting at Columbus Circle and exited at East 79th Street in order to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where we spent the better part of an afternoon. In the evening, we went to see the biographical musical Hamilton at the Richard Rodgers Theater on West 46th Street, which was superb. I had been a bit sceptical about seeing it because there was a lot of rapping, but suffice it to say that it blew me away--both music and lyrics. When we exited the theater and walked back to the hotel via Times Square, we were both amazed at the vibrancy, energy and life of the city and of the people hanging around there. It brought to mind the old saying--New York is the city that never sleeps. That seemed to be the case at around 11 pm on a Friday night in September. 

Our high school reunion on Saturday proved to be an enjoyable one; of the one hundred or so students we graduated with, about twenty-five attended the afternoon brunch that was held at a restaurant in Yonkers. It was fun to catch up with everyone, although three hours was too short a time to really talk in depth with everyone. I don't know if there will be future reunions; I doubt it, but who knows? At least ten of our classmates have passed away in the intervening years. It's hard to believe it's been fifty years since we all graduated from high school. 

After the reunion, I had lunch at Harvest on Hudson (Harvest on Hudson | Italian Restaurant in Hastings, New York (harvesthudson.com) with my friends Gordon and Mary-Ann, both of whom I know from my Memorial Sloan-Kettering Days, and spent some time with Jola, also from my Memorial Sloan-Kettering Days. I also managed to meet Stef for lunch at Horsefeathers (Home | horsefeathers (horsefeathersny.com) in Tarrytown. Horsefeathers has been around since 1981 and was the site of many a get-together with family and friends when I lived in New York. And then I spent the remainder of my time in New York at my second home--Jean's house. I always look forward to being there. Maria came down from Albany and we all hung out together as we love to do. We made a trip to the small town of Pawling in upstate New York, had lunch there and then wandered around the small shops. The following day we spent the afternoon with Maria's sister Margarete and her son Zac. I always return to Oslo from New York in a happy frame of mind and with a lot of energy to spare. That's because I am together with close friends and family. Just being together with people who truly know and love you is a gift from God. I know that's true because our get-togethers are blessed with grace, understanding, peace, and love. We love each other in the best possible way--acceptance of who we are, where we are in life, what we believe in, and genuine wishes for the others' happiness and wellbeing. I've said it before many times, but I'll say it again--I cannot imagine my life without my close friends. God has been good to me and I am grateful for them. 

I'll post some photos of my trip in my next post. 

Dealing with the patriarchy

I saw this greeting card in a bookstore in Pawling NY on my recent trip to New York State, and it resonated with the feminist in me. Not that I'm really out to slay the patriarchy 😏, but there are times when I wish patriarchal institutions (like the Vatican) would move more quickly when it comes to allowing women to become priests, for example. Most people I talk to seem to think that priests will be allowed to marry before women are allowed to become priests. I can live with that, as long as both are on the priority list. It will probably happen when vocations are so reduced as to be considered a critical situation. It would be wonderful if the church was proactive for once and didn't wait for a dire situation to occur. We'll see what time brings......

The Catholic Church's stance on IVF procedures

Many Catholic priests are encouraging their congregations to vote for Trump/Vance. This is solely because both oppose abortion, although Trump's stance on abortion is really unclear. He really just wants to let the states decide the matter. In other words, he'll wash his hands of the whole controversial issue while stating loudly that he is against abortion. What he'd rather do is promise America free IVF (in vitro fertilization) procedures for married couples. This became clear at the first debate between Trump and Harris on September 10. According to Politico.com:

"The former president, eager to deflect attacks that his election would threaten fertility care, has gone so far as to pledge free IVF treatments to all Americans, paid for either by insurance companies or the federal government." (Trump sells himself as a ‘leader’ on IVF, angering some Republicans - POLITICO)

Wow. Firstly, how socialist of him. This is the type of thing you'd expect from the socialist countries most Americans profess to hate (God forbid America becomes socialist). I'll tackle that in another post; suffice it to say that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program are all 'socialist' programs from which most Americans benefit, thanks to Franklin D Roosevelt. IVF is an expensive procedure, costing upwards of 10,000 dollars per try. It doesn't always 'take' on the first try, so there can be other attempts. In Norway, the government will pay for the first IVF procedure (about half the price of that in the USA); if it doesn't work the first time, the couple are on their own and must pay for future procedures themselves. This is as it should be. It is not a human right to have a child, nor is it the responsibility of the rest of the country to ensure that couples have children. In the same way that it is not the government's responsibility to pay for abortions.  

Secondly, he hasn't done his homework. The Catholic Church does not allow IVF procedures; they are considered immoral. I suggest that people read the information found at the following link very carefully. You will learn why IVF is considered immoral (Begotten Not Made: A Catholic View of Reproductive Technology | USCCB). 

"One reproductive technology which the Church has clearly and unequivocally judged to be immoral is in vitro fertilization or IVF........In IVF, children are engendered through a technical process, subjected to "quality control," and eliminated if found "defective." In their very coming into being, these children are thoroughly subjected to the arbitrary choices of those bringing them into being. In the words of Donum Vitae: "The connection between in vitro fertilization and the voluntary destruction of human embryos occurs too often. This is significant: through these procedures, with apparently contrary purposes, life and death are subjected to the decision of man, who thus sets himself up as the giver of life and death by decree." 

So, to summarize, the Catholic Church wishes to endorse a man for president who is promising free IVF to all Americans, just because he is anti-abortion. He is one of the most un-Christlike men in modern history. It makes no sense, given that many of the IVF-fertilized eggs will be discarded if not needed or if they are defective. How is this different from abortion? I don't get it. I just remember my father telling me that the church is made up of imperfect human beings. I gave up hoping a long time ago that the clergy could provide clear, solid and moral leadership, not weighed down by hypocrisy and confusion. There are very few priests who fit that bill. 

Pets leaving Springfield Ohio after the presidential campaign debate

Memes that have appeared since the disastrous debate (for the orange-haired man) on September 10......