Fake news, moral relativity, false people

I decided this past week to cancel my digital subscription to a major US newspaper. It doesn’t matter which newspaper for the sake of this post. I cancelled it because I disagreed with their editorial decision on a particular issue. It bothered me that the newspaper caved to public pressure on that issue. And their expectations were that their readers should understand that, but my opinion is that the editorial page should be able to present multiple sides of any issue. However, in 2020 that doesn’t seem to be possible. You have to take one or the other side whether you want to or not or are ready to do so or not. I can’t do it just because someone tells me I have to. I was raised bipartisan and will remain bipartisan. I need to be able to look at all sides of an issue. And frankly, there are often multiple sides to an issue. So being multi-partisan might be the way to go. This doesn’t mean that I don’t take a stand; often I do, but only after reflection and self-questioning (what do I believe or feel or think about this or that issue). I don’t want to be ‘told’ what stand to take, I want to figure things out for myself. That is the result of my parents and my Catholic upbringing. Unfortunately, the current president has done nothing to encourage reflection and bipartisanship.

My point is that it was nearly impossible to cancel my subscription. I got an email from customer service asking me to reconsider, and telling me that they would reduce my subscription cost by 75%. It’s interesting by itself that they automatically assumed that I cancelled because the subscription was too expensive. They also thanked me for being a subscriber and stated that it was due to the support of subscribers like me that allowed them to continue to pursue the truth. They added that the truth was more important now than ever. I agree with the last sentence, and hope that the newspaper really is interested in pursuing the truth. We’re constantly being told that there is a lot of fake news out there. I’m sure that’s the case. None of the media (newspapers, television, or social media) can claim to be the only ones who pursue or know the truth. None of them can claim to ‘own’ the truth. Those who say things like that are those I write off immediately—I’m simply not interested. Up to this point, I thought certain newspapers stood head and shoulders above the rest. Now, I’m not so sure.

The older I get, the more sensitive my bullshit detector gets. My advice to most people—don’t try to put one over on me, pull the wool over my eyes, or coax me over to your side (which is of course ‘the right side’). You’ll regret it. I’ll write you off faster than you can say ‘morally relative’. I have zero patience left for partisan political agendas, fifteen-minute-of-fame agendas, or people who want me to support agendas I don’t believe in—the list is long. I’m not hopping on your bandwagon to promote the newest management philosophy in the workplace, I’m not interested in listening to the same psychobabble week after week, month after month, about this new vision or that new innovation. I don’t care. The old expression ‘put your money where your mouth is’, is the only thing I’m interested in. When management has been told time and again that more employees are needed to solve a particular problem, and management continues to push the ‘relevant’ flavour of the month management philosophy (New Public Management, LEAN, etc.) that we all need to work more effectively with less resources and less people, then management has a big problem. Most of these philosophies are ‘the emperor’s new clothes’ (the emperor is naked, but we’re told to praise his clothes) philosophies. I won’t cede to them. I won’t think positive when the situation in front of me is clearly negative and needs to be acknowledged as such in order for it to be solved. I won’t pretend everything is ok when it’s not. But we’re asked to pretend every day, and it makes me weary. Most of it is fake, and most of it is pure bullshit. But we’re told that it’s not and we’re told to believe that it’s not. We’re told that it’s ok to be direct and honest in the workplace; but it’s not. We’re told to think big and to be innovative; but when we do that, it’s wrong. We’re told to communicate effectively, but when we try to, we find that we cannot write the whole truth; it takes hours to formulate a politically-correct email that won’t offend anyone or step on anyone’s toes (status, position, or territory). My God, it’s boring. Effective communication? No.

This is not life the way I want to live it. I want to live honestly and to not pretend. I want to live according to my ethical and moral principles, not according to someone else’s political agenda at work or in society at large. I don’t want to give up my principles in order to align myself with someone else’s ‘side’. I don’t want to be loyal to people who I know are false. There are many false people who want to drag you into their sphere, those who tempt you with status, money, power, or prestige. Those people who shift their beliefs and thoughts according to the popular flavour of the month philosophy (moral relativity). Those people who lie to your face. Those people whose sole interests in life are fame and fortune, whose greed dominates (and dooms) most relationships.

Perhaps the corona virus pandemic has given me the time to see how society and the workplace really are. I’ve had a chance to do a reality check. What I know is that society needs a re-haul, bigtime. Press the restart button. I’m not sure what we should move toward, but perhaps moving away from fame and fortune, from greed, and more toward a spiritually-oriented life, would be a start and a welcome change.  

Civility and respect for others

I cancelled yet another newspaper subscription this morning. My husband and I have discussed cancelling our different newspaper subscriptions for the past two years, mostly because we find that they have gone from being newspapers that used to try to present the news in a neutral fashion, to being purveyors of whatever agenda they wish to push at present. To some of you, this might seem rather short-sighted; after all, you can argue that we need to get our news from someplace. We need to follow what is happening in the world. And to a certain extent, you're right. But also wrong. Because what I didn't see happening was this--we're happier without them. We no longer start the day with misery; we no longer have to discuss all that's wrong with the world at the breakfast table. I no longer ruin the start of my day by letting all the world's ills overwhelm me the minute I get up. They seep in anyway during the day, and if we watch the tv news as we do sporadically, we certainly get our dose of misery. So we don't escape it, we just control how it happens and how much we let in.

Newspapers in all countries need to be careful about over-pushing their agendas, be they conservative or liberal. Most of us grew up in a bipartisan atmosphere (at least the families I grew up with in our neck of the woods), able to see both sides, even if we leaned toward one or the other a bit more. I know there was political unrest, hatred, bitterness and spite back in the 1960s, 70s and 80s when we were growing up; you just need to google Vietnam, racial unrest, Watergate and Nixon. But it is so totally extreme and out of control now. Nowadays, judging by what I see happening in the USA, we are so bitterly divided, with the gap widening a bit more each day, such that I fear for the future of our country. We are still a young country compared to most European countries that have centuries of wars and unrest behind them. It feels like a civil war is already taking place in America, fought in the media trenches and in social media and online generally. If you have the 'wrong' opinion and express it, you can expect to be hung out, brutally criticized, suppressed, fired from your job, or other such outcomes depending on the audience that gets a hold of what you said. You will get your fifteen minutes of fame and then some, but not in the manner you would have chosen for yourself. Good people who might want to say something become afraid to do so, whereas the people who don't care at all what other people think of them, have free reign.

I don't want a civil war, nor do I want a world where we are not able to express our opinions. But there is a way of expressing opinions that needs to change. We need to relearn civility. Civility is defined as 'formal politeness and courtesy in behaviour or speech'. We need to relearn how to respect others. It is possible to have a different opinion from others without expressing hatred for those who do not share your views. It is possible to discuss both sides of a situation without being labelled a pariah for doing so. Isn't this approach what judges and lawyers engage in everyday? They work on court cases that need examination of both sides of the issue. Imagine a world where judges ruled a person guilty before the trial. That would not be a democracy, and would not be a country I'd want to live in. And yet, we are behaving in this way on social media and in the media generally, judging and sentencing people before they and we have had a chance to discuss the issues.

Some younger people I know have now limited or cancelled their social media accounts because of the hatred they see online. It's tempting to follow them. I haven't up to now because social media remains an important connection to my family and friends in the USA. But I have reduced my interaction with social media in order to stay peaceful. You might ask why peace is so important to me; after all, the world has many problems that need to be tackled. That's true. But I know from experience that anger and volatility don't solve problems. They fuel the fire of hatred and revenge. Assertiveness, peaceful protests, standing up for yourself, being able to reach out to the other side in order to discuss the issues--these are what solve problems. Diplomacy, compromise, an empathetic approach--these solve problems. Anger gets spent, and after it burns out, the real work begins. The question at present is who will be willing to work for real change in politics at home and globally. The type of change needed must be fronted by civil and respectful leaders.

An excellent article by George Will: if you read one article today, read this one

I am posting the link to a recent article in The Washington Post written by George Will, that I think is excellent: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/no-one-should-want-four-more-years-of-this-taste-of-ashes/2020/06/01/1a80ecf4-a425-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html .

The strange thing is that the George Will I remember from many years ago was politically conservative, a Reagan supporter, and not given to suffering fools in either political party. I haven't followed his doings much since the 1980s, but apparently he's become a bit less conservative as he's gotten older. Or perhaps it took a Trump to shake him up. In any case, this is a man who has previously had Republican leanings, and who recently wrote this article that I am posting today. It is an anti-Trump article, but also an anti-Republican Congress article. It skewers Trump and his Republican Congressional supporters. I would never have thought this type of article would come from Will, but it has, and I applaud it. The title of the article is 'Trump must be removed. So must his congressional enablers'.

Here is the article in its entirety:

Trump must be removed. So must his congressional enablers. 

June 1, 2020 at 9:18 p.m. GMT+2 by George Will

This unraveling presidency began with the Crybaby-in-Chief banging his spoon on his highchair tray to protest a photograph — a photograph — showing that his inauguration crowd the day before had been smaller than the one four years previous. Since then, this weak person’s idea of a strong person, this chest-pounding advertisement of his own gnawing insecurities, this low-rent Lear raging on his Twitter-heath has proven that the phrase malignant buffoon is not an oxymoron.

Presidents, exploiting modern communications technologies and abetted today by journalists preening as the “resistance” — like members of the French Resistance 1940-1944, minus the bravery — can set the tone of American society, which is regrettably soft wax on which presidents leave their marks. The president’s provocations — his coarsening of public discourse that lowers the threshold for acting out by people as mentally crippled as he — do not excuse the violent few. They must be punished. He must be removed.

Social causation is difficult to demonstrate, particularly between one person’s words and other persons’ deeds. However: The person voters hired in 2016 to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” stood on July 28, 2017, in front of uniformed police and urged them “please don’t be too nice” when handling suspected offenders. His hope was fulfilled for 8 minutes and 46 seconds on Minneapolis pavement.

What Daniel Patrick Moynihan termed “defining deviancy down” now defines American politics. In 2016, voters were presented an unprecedentedly unpalatable choice: Never had both major parties offered nominees with higher disapproval than approval numbers. Voters chose what they wagered would be the lesser blight. Now, however, they have watched him govern for 40 months and more than 40 percent — slightly less than the percentage that voted for him — approve of his sordid conduct.

Presidents seeking re-election bask in chants of “Four more years!” This year, however, most Americans — perhaps because they are, as the president predicted, weary from all the winning — might flinch: Four more years of this? The taste of ashes, metaphorical and now literal, dampens enthusiasm.

The nation’s downward spiral into acrimony and sporadic anarchy has had many causes much larger than the small man who is the great exacerbator of them. Most of the causes predate his presidency, and most will survive its January terminus. The measures necessary for restoration of national equilibrium are many and will be protracted far beyond his removal. One such measure must be the removal of those in Congress who, unlike the sycophantic mediocrities who cosset him in the White House, will not disappear “magically,” as Eric Trump said the coronavirus would. Voters must dispatch his congressional enablers, especially the senators who still gambol around his ankles with a canine hunger for petting.

In life’s unforgiving arithmetic, we are the sum of our choices. Congressional Republicans have made theirs for more than 1,200 days. We cannot know all the measures necessary to restore the nation’s domestic health and international standing, but we know the first step: Senate Republicans must be routed, as condign punishment for their Vichyite collaboration, leaving the Republican remnant to wonder: Was it sensible to sacrifice dignity, such as it ever was, and to shed principles, if convictions so easily jettisoned could be dignified as principles, for . . . what? Praying people should pray, and all others should hope: May I never crave anything as much as these people crave membership in the world’s most risible deliberative body.

A political party’s primary function is to bestow its imprimatur on candidates, thereby proclaiming: This is who we are. In 2016, the Republican Party gave its principal nomination to a vulgarian and then toiled to elect him. And to stock Congress with invertebrates whose unswerving abjectness has enabled his institutional vandalism, who have voiced no serious objections to his Niagara of lies, and whom T.S. Eliot anticipated:

We are the hollow men . . .

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

or rats’ feet over broken glass . . .

Those who think our unhinged president’s recent mania about a murder two decades ago that never happened represents his moral nadir have missed the lesson of his life: There is no such thing as rock bottom. So, assume that the worst is yet to come. Which implicates national security: Abroad, anti-Americanism sleeps lightly when it sleeps at all, and it is wide-awake as decent people judge our nation’s health by the character of those to whom power is entrusted. Watching, too, are indecent people in Beijing and Moscow.

Why Can't We Live Together by Timmy Thomas

Why Can't We Live Together

Timmy Thomas

Tell me why, tell me why, tell me why
Why can't we live together
Tell me why, tell me why
Why can't we live together

Everybody wants to live together
Why can't we be together

No more war, no more war, no more war
Just a little peace
No more war, no more war
All we want is some peace in this world

Everybody wants to live together
Why can't we be together

No matter, no matter what color
You are still my brother
I said no matter, no matter what color
You are still my brother

Everybody wants to live together
Why can't we be together

Everybody wants to live
Everybody's got to be together

Everybody wants to live
Everybody's going to be…

Pauses, trial runs, and life lessons

Nearly three months working from home, and I’ve learned more about myself. The learning never really ends. One of the biggest surprises was that I don’t miss going to an actual place of work. I’ve gone into work about four times since lockdown started, to update files and directories on the hospital network that I don’t have access to from home, and to water the plants. I thought I would miss whatever little social interactions there are, but I don’t. They are so few these days anyway that they no longer really matter—a short conversation in the hallway, but mostly just greeting co-workers when I run into them in the hallways. No long conversations, no lunches, no after-work get-togethers. These are things of the past, my distant past. Like most other things relegated to the past, you can miss them or not. It won’t make too much difference. The river of life carries us ever onward, toward new and unexplored destinations to which I look forward.

I view this time as a trial run for retirement. I’ve discovered that I’ll be fine. I enjoy having control over my time, my plans, and my daily schedule. I won’t miss meetings (virtual or otherwise), and I won’t miss deadlines, filing reports, waiting for answers to emails (that rarely come), or the perpetual babble about new visions and new ways to solve problems that no one really wants to solve, or that no one has the budgets to solve. Because in the final analysis, what would solve so many problems is to have the manpower to really effect change. But we cannot have that. So we go on pretending that problems that require manpower, are solvable without it. It’s a catch-22 and I’m tired of playing the game. I won’t anymore. I’ve also discovered that I’m practically-oriented; if I see a solution to a problem, I want to implement it. That’s not always allowed, for some of the reasons mentioned above.

I’ve also discovered that I’m not a particularly loyal person anymore in a work context. I was, once upon a time, but circumstances change and you come to realize that loyalty is often viewed by management as blind obedience. I can’t do that—be blindly obedient. I wasn’t raised that way; additionally, Catholic education encouraged us to think for ourselves, look at both sides, and make reasoned decisions accordingly. Facts were important, and truth was something to be aimed at. I cannot pretend that ‘the emperor is wearing new clothes’ when he or she is in fact naked. I am not loyal in that way, and never will be. It’s one of the reasons that I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican; I grew up in a bipartisan family and plan on remaining bipartisan. There are good reasons for that, which I’ll write about in another post. Suffice it to say that trying to see both sides is something that more leaders should add to their skills toolbox. Being honest about specific situations is another one.

I’ve also discovered that for all the different ways we have to communicate, we don’t really communicate effectively in a work context. We’ve lost the ability to listen well; I am not saying people don’t listen to each other, but they come to most encounters with their own agenda (myself included), and it’s very hard to catch oneself while behaving that way. It mostly amounts to learning to shut up. One can start there and move forward. I think our current political leaders could learn to do the same. Because once you learn to shut up, empathy starts to rear its head. There is no empathy without real listening. ‘Listen unto others as you would have them listen unto you’. Learning to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes is a question of training, and it’s hard work. I have two friends with debilitating neurological illnesses, and what they complain about the most is the lack of empathy they deal with every day. They do not feel ‘seen’ or listened to, and that is a complaint that many elderly in our society also have. My mother used to say that she felt invisible the older she got. She was not an aggressive person; had she been so, outcomes might have been different. My mother and those in her generation grew up differently. Society at present is harsh, dog-eat-dog, intent on measuring how young, successful, beautiful, handsome, or wealthy you are, at all costs. If you don’t measure up, you’re not worth much. Old age is viewed as your own fault, about which you should do something. It’s viewed as an illness or a problem, not as a natural evolution. And yet, all living persons will get old and die one day. That’s just life. No amount of wishful thinking or plastic surgery will prevent that.

I’ve also realized that I’m ‘so over’ much that strikes me as stupid or inane. I have no patience for listening to bullshit, and no patience for people who do not use their intelligence. I have no patience for unkind people; if you want to be in my circle, kindness is one of the keys for entrance. I won’t be unkind toward unkind people; I just simply walk away from them. I won’t give them the opportunity to unleash their rage or frustration on me or others. I am not interested in what they have to say. I have given such people more leeway in my life previously, but no more. If you are unhappy with your life, stay away from me, unless you want me to list up all of the things in your life for which you should be grateful. Go out and take a walk in nature, do volunteer work, or stop watching the inanity on television and social media. Change your life. It can be done.

Two weeks makes such a difference in a garden

My last garden update was on May 11th. Since that time, the weather has gotten warmer (almost summer-like), and the garden has just taken off. It's like someone turned the switch to 'on'. I have bought a number of new plants for my flower garden--a Japanese maple that will be the new centerpiece of the garden, surrounded by hosta, cornflowers, asters, carnations, and more lavender. I also planted wild ivy along the iron fence behind the greenhouse, in the hope that it will take off and cover the entire fence so that we will get some privacy. That whole area, from the fence to the greenhouse, has been planted with flowers, pachysandra, and hosta, among others. The magnolia tree has bloomed, and still has six buds getting ready to bloom. The wisteria tree is also doing well. My garden neighbour gave me a dogwood tree last autumn that is also doing very well. I have sowed out grass seed, and the grass is starting to spring up, but it takes time before there will be a lawn to speak of. I planted sunflowers behind the compost enclosure, and they are coming up. Behind the greenhouse itself, I have planted sweet pea flowers, which are lovely. Sweet pea plants are climbers, and produce lovely red and bluish-purple fragrant flowers.

My vegetable garden is also doing well. The radishes are finished, so I am harvesting them and using them in salads, and they are very good. My potato plants (Folva type) are also doing very well; I have about thirty plants, each of which will produce about three good-sized potatoes, plus some small ones. The small ones will be used for next year's plantings; I store them in the crisper during the wintertime and they develop eyes and sprouts--perfect for planting. This year I bought three sweet potato plants to see how they do. Otherwise, I've planted two types of pumpkins that are now starting to take off, and four summer squash (zucchini) plants, which usually do very well. I've decided to plant all of my tomato plants outdoors this year; the greenhouse gets so warm that even though they do well inside, they are constantly in need of water.

The Japanese maple, like hydrangeas, needs low pH soil, so I bought hydrangea soil and planted the maple tree with it. So far so good. I am curious to see how the hydrangeas will like this soil as well. I have had major problems with them coming back each year. The panicled hydrangeas that I bought last year have come back without any problems whatsoever, so I don't know why regular hydrangeas are so problematic.

Here's how the garden looked two days ago; compare the pics to those from May 11th. Again, the miracle of gardens--they grow and do what they do without making a big deal about it. They're amazing, majestic, awe-inspiring. I could live in my garden the entire summer. Love my garden...….

Blackbird in the birdbath

I've been wondering why the birdbath is nearly emptied of water when I come to the garden many days. I think I know why now. I caught this little fellow enjoying his bath, and he wasn't afraid of me at all. So I captured him on video. In addition to him, there are the sparrows that alight on the edge of the birdbath to drink water, and sometimes to bathe. I'm just super-pleased that they are using it--makes me so happy to see them!

A garden update

I've been working in the garden since mid-March, about the time lockdown started here in Norway. Apart from working at home and remaining indoors, the garden has been the only free space available to me when I am outdoors, and I am immensely grateful for that. I have taken the occasional walk around the neighbourhood, but ran into too many people for there to be safe social distancing. And that's not so strange considering we live in a city. So it's been nice to escape to my garden, and there's been plenty of work to do since March--raking, clearing away dead twigs, turning the soil, cutting back a number of trees and bushes, spreading grass seed, sowing out vegetable and flower seeds in the greenhouse, cutting away the dead canes in the raspberry patch, weeding the raspberry and strawberry patches (this can take hours), and transplanting some bushes from one place to another. Plus I've bought more plants, mostly perennial flowers, to round out the garden, and they needed to be planted. It may not sound like enough work for a couple of months, but it is, especially since I am not in the garden full-time. If I was, it might go faster, but since I'm still working full-time, it all takes time. And that's ok for now.

We finally got the roughly 12 square meters behind the greenhouse 'returned' to us last summer, and I decided to make this space another 'room' in the garden. Last autumn, I planted allium, tulips, scilla, spring snowflakes, grape hyacinths, regular hyacinths and narcissus (a type of daffodil), all of them bulbs, and they have all come up. We also bought a wisteria tree and a magnolia tree and planted them in this space, as well as a lilac bush. The magnolia tree is blossoming now, and its blossoms are a lovely reddish-pink color. I decided that I wanted a stone path leading from the vegetable garden area up to and behind the greenhouse, so I bought some slate stones and embedded them in the soil, and sowed grass seed around them. I bought pachysandra plants and planted them along the path, in the hope that these hardy plants will begin to thrive and spread out.

There is always a new project to work on in the garden, and I love each one--both the planning and the execution. Whenever I think I'm 'finished', I realize shortly thereafter that I'm not, and never will be. Gardens are works in progress.

C.S. Lewis quotes

• You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.
• We are what we believe we are.
• True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.
• Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don't implement promises, but keep them.
• You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.
• Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.
• God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
• No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.
• Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
• Miracles do not, in fact, break the laws of nature.
• We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.
• I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
• Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
• If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

Some reflections on C.S. Lewis

I finished Preparing for Easter by C.S. Lewis shortly after Easter, which is a book of his reflections on Christianity for each day of Lent. Lewis was a prolific writer of both children’s books and books for adults, and I was introduced to his adult books by my father, himself a prolific reader and a great fan of both Lewis and G.K. Chesterton (who wrote The Everlasting Man). Lewis was an atheist for a good portion of his life, but found his way to Christianity by reflection and reason. Or as he might have put it, he was pulled in that direction and at some point stopped resisting.

His writings appeal to me and others who have had questions about their faith, who haven’t accepted all aspects of our faith on ‘blind faith’ alone. Perhaps that makes us doubting Thomas-es, but I for one have a lot of compassion for doubting Thomas, who was a sceptic by nature. Yes, his faith was wanting when push came to shove, but life is often like that. I doubt that God loved him any less in the long run. Even Lewis suffered doubts about God’s existence when he lost his beloved wife Joy to cancer. Some of his best books come from that period and that experience; he wrote about pain, suffering, and grief in ways that you will remember long after you read his books. He never forgot to write about our humanity in our meetings with God. He understood as an academic that it was difficult to accept some of the tenets of Christian faith. So his mission was to write to help us understand them. I must admit that I use quite a bit of time to reflect upon his writings. But as he himself once said, ‘he reasoned his way to faith’. And for an atheist, that is perhaps the only way. When reason overpowers scepticism so totally, then there are no defences left to fight with.

Supalonely by Benee ft. Gus Dapperton

Loved this song from the first time I heard it.....

It's getting some airplay now during these quarantine times--Supalonely.

Pope Francis' message for Easter

I found Pope Francis' message of Easter hope to be comforting during these trying times. We need to be reminded that there is light and hope in the midst of darkness and despair. Pope Francis said that we should 'Be messengers of life in a time of death'. He is, and he can show us the way. Here is the link to the article: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-easter-pope-vigil/be-messengers-of-life-in-a-time-of-death-pope-says-on-easter-eve-idUSKCN21T0UK?il=0

It's hard to focus on life when the media are so focused on corona virus deaths. I understand that they need to present the facts, and some news channels are better at it than others, in other words, some are better at not sensationalizing everything. Each of us has an overload button that gets pushed at different times for us all. I watch what I need to watch, and no more. That's about ten to fifteen minutes of news at night. Besides those hospitalized, my heart goes out to all the doctors and nurses and EMT personnel on the front lines. They are and will forever be the heroes of this time. They are truly focused on life, on preserving life, on trying to keep their patients alive. Perhaps even if they keep one patient alive in the midst of all the death around them, that is a victory. They don't give in or give up. And that is perhaps another message for this time: 'It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness'. We can't give up. God never gives us more than we can handle. He has blessed the world with scientists who are united now in a global effort to find a vaccine for this virus. They will find one, and there will be a victory over this virus. And he has also blessed the world with those who have faith, and who pray for the world. We need both science and faith. They are not mutually exclusive.

Some humor in these corona virus times

I love the animal memes that are circulating on FB these days. Here are a couple of them that are hysterical.

Holy Week pastoral letter written by Fr. McShane of Fordham University

Fr. McShane's pastoral letter for Palm Sunday and Holy Week...…..


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Members of the Fordham Community,

Peace of Christ.

Let me begin with an embarrassing confession. How embarrassing? Very embarrassing. At least for a Jesuit. Here goes. I always approach Holy Week with a mixture of eager longing and dread. There. I said it. Eager longing and dread. I know that you will say that that is a very strange combination of feelings, and I would agree. And yet. And yet, it is the awful truth. You will, of course, ask why I feel this way whenever I see Holy Week roaring toward me on the liturgical calendar.

And of course, Holy Week is closely linked by the calendar to Passover, the first night of which is celebrated on Wednesday evening. Thus, this month we have two spring observances of loss and redemption from two Religions of the Book. A symbol of the universality of faith and love.

But back to Holy Week: The truth behind the confession that I just shared with you is this: I know (and I suspect that you know it as well) that Holy Week and the Passion (the narrative that lies at its heart) are filled with shadows and wrenching emotional pivots. You know what I mean. From Palm Sunday to Spy Wednesday to Holy Thursday to Good Friday to Holy Saturday, we face and wrestle with displays of cruelty contending with tenderness, warm friendship answered by bitter betrayal, professions of undying support followed by abandonment, honesty squaring off with intrigue, hope fighting for the upper hand against despair, and love locked in (mortal) combat with deadening cynicism.

And so, I enter Holy Week with my eyes wide open, and with the understanding that once I step over its threshold on Palm Sunday, there is no turning back. It’s an all-or-nothing proposition. Therefore, I face the emotional and spiritual roller coaster that it promises with that mixture of eager longing and dread that I told you about a few minutes (or sentences) ago. I really do. You may, of course, say that having read what I just shared with you, you understand the “dread” part of my confession and then ask me how I could possibly look forward to the ordeal (and it really is an ordeal) with eager longing. The simple answer is that I can’t help myself. I just can’t. The love that stands at the center of the Passion accounts (and thus drives all of Holy Week) is so commanding, and its ultimate triumph so consoling that I can’t resist it. I simply can’t. (And I suspect that you can’t resist it either. Admit it. If I can come clean, so can you. And while we are about the work of telling the truth to one another, I should also tell you that I also look forward to Holy Week with deep, heartfelt longing because I know that although the Passion is timeless and unchanging, it surprises me every year by revealing more and more about the love that lies at its core. Therefore, to borrow a phrase from Saint Augustine, it is “ever ancient, ever new”; and I thirst for the newness that God has in store for me every year, and especially this year.)

And so, on this Palm Sunday morning, once again I will step across the threshold of Holy Week with eager longing and dread. Normally, I would enter the Week in the company of a great throng of other believers and be buoyed up, consoled, and strengthened by their faith. Normally, I would enter with holy dread holding a bit of the upper hand over eager longing. Normally I would pause before plunging into the Week to ask for the grace to walk with the Lord Jesus with unflinching courage. Normally. But this year and this Holy Week are anything but normal. We will not find ourselves in the company of large throngs. We will enter it and walk through it in a solitary way. We will all of us enter it with more longing than usual. Longing for companionship with the Lord. Longing for comfort. Longing for love. For my part, I must confess that this year I will change the prayer for grace that I normally utter on Palm Sunday morning. This year, I will pray for the grace to feel and know that the Lord is walking with me—and with all of us as we walk through our shared experience of the very real human passion/suffering that we find ourselves wrestling with.

If experience has taught me anything about what will be the highlight of this year’s Holy Week, it is this: that by the end of the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday, I will be exhausted. Wrung out. And as I have always done in the moments of exhaustion that follow the Good Friday liturgy and extend into the quiet of Holy Saturday, I will stand, sit, or kneel before the image of the Pieta in the thirteenth Station of the Cross in the University Church. As I do, I will hear over and over in my head the haunting words and music of the Passiontide hymn “O Sacred Head Surrounded.” In this contemplative moment, (after the semi-cinematic sweep of the events of Holy Week has passed) I will gaze at Mary, the Mother of Sorrows. I will look at her face and see there the unfathomable sorrow of a mother suffering the shock of seeing her Son die “out of order,” that is, before her. I will gaze at her hands as she cradles her Son with what one of the Advent prefaces calls “love beyond all telling.” And in that moment, I will (as I always do) see the price and yes, the triumph of the redeeming love of God, who always chooses to walk with His people and share their sufferings. This year, I will also meditate on and make my own these words that come from the Rite of Marriage in the Book of Common Prayer: “Most Gracious God, we give You thanks for Your tender love in sending Jesus Christ to come among us, to be born of a human mother, and to make the way of the cross to be the way of life.” The cost and triumph of love.

I may be wrong, but I believe (and believe with all my heart) that the Pieta is the image for this year’s Holy Week, a week during which so many of our friends will struggle with and/or die of COVID-19. Therefore, once again I hope that you will not mind if I ask a favor of you. Close your eyes. Then, see in your mind’s eye one of our sisters or brothers who is dying without the comforting presence and warm embrace of his or her family in the moment of fear or dread in which they need them most. Be present to that person. Cradle them with your prayers. Be fervent. Be bold in your prayer. Ask the Mother of Sorrows to join you as a companion in prayer. Let the power of love triumph in that moment of prayer.

Be assured of my prayers for you and all whom you love during this most solemn Week. May it be a week during which the Lord walks with you and reveals ever more fully the depth of His love for you. And for our Jewish families and loved ones celebrating the liberation from Pharaoh’s bondage, I pray that you also are liberated from fear, from illness, and from the loneliness that this pandemic spring has brought to all of us.

Prayers and blessings,
Joseph M. McShane, S.J.

For those who oppose vaccines

Pastoral message of March 29th from the President of Fordham University

This is another pastoral letter I have received from Father McShane, and as promised, I am posting it here, for comfort and inspiration. 

Dear Members of the Fordham Community, Peace of Christ. During my visits to the University Church, I have found myself irresistibly drawn to pray before stained glass windows in the east transept. I can and do stand before it for long periods of time, frequently with tears in my eyes. Understand that I have passed and looked at that window hundreds of times in the course of the twenty-three years that I have been at Fordham. And I have never had a particularly emotional reaction to it. In fact, if the truth were told, I would have to confess that my eyes--dry or otherwise--were never really drawn to it. At all. Of course, if you asked me, I could have told you who was depicted in the window. If you asked me if there was anything else interesting about it, I would probably have told you that the artist who created the window had cleverly inserted a Rembrandt Christ into the background. But I was never drawn to it. I was never drawn into it. Never. I'd walk past it without emotion. But not now. As I said, these days I can't get away from it. It draws me in with great force. And it speaks to me. You might ask what could possibly move me to tears before that window. Good question. Bear with me. The window captures a very innocent moment, the moment at which St. Aloysius Gonzaga received his First Communion from St. Charles Borromeo, the Archbishop of Milan (and a great saint in his own right). Innocent enough. But there is a story behind the young man in the window. Aloysius Gonzaga. Gonzaga. If people hear that name these days, they would most probably tell you that it brings to mind the famously successful basketball program at the Jesuit university in Spokane that bears that name. Nothing more. But there is far more to the man in the window than his connection to that perennially strong basketball team from Washington State.   Aloysius was the eldest son of the Marquis of Castiglione. Therefore, to say that he was a child of privilege would be an understatement. A vast understatement. A budding princeling, Aloysius spent his early life among the courtiers of the noble houses of Renaissance Italy (those hotbeds of ambition, corruption, intrigue and power), with a few side trips to the Hapsburg courts of Spain and Austria. Although he was destined to inherit his father's title and live a life of privilege, his head was not turned by what he saw in those settings. Far from it. In fact, he was deeply troubled by the venality and corruption he encountered in them and decided at an early age to enter the newly-founded Society of Jesus. His father was furious. Aloysius stood his ground. He renounced his titles and his inheritance and left behind him the life his father wanted for him. After he entered the Jesuits, he pursued his studies at the Roman College, where St. Robert Bellarmine was his spiritual director. When a plague broke out in Rome, like many of his young Jesuit confreres, he worked in the city's hospitals, ministering to its victims. When his superiors (for fear of incurring his father's wrath) forbade him to continue his work, he pleaded with them to allow him to continue. They relented, but with a catch. They told him that he could only work in a hospital that did not serve contagious patients. He accepted the assignment on the spot. In the course of his service, however, he cared for a patient who had, in fact, been infected with the plague and was himself infected. He died shortly thereafter.   His brethren recognized his holiness. They recognized his heroism. They recognized his goodness. They were also astounded by the magnitude of the sacrifices he had made: giving up the life of a courtier to live a life of simplicity, and giving up his life to serve the suffering. (His old spiritual director, Robert Bellarmine, a saint, a scholar, and a cardinal, was so impressed by Aloysius that he asked to be buried at his feet.) Throughout his life and in the manner of his death, then, Aloysius was a "sign of contradiction" (or a living oxymoron): he was a humble noble. Or was he all the more fascinating because he redefined nobility in terms of service? I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.   For myself, when I go to the University Church these days, I am drawn to St. Al's window. I stand there transfixed. And these words from the Book of Sirach ring in my ears and rumble through my heart: "Let us now praise famous men and women . . . those who gave counsel by their understanding, leaders in their deliberations and learning, wise in their instruction. And ... the men and women of mercy, whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten. Their posterity will continue forever, and their glory will not be blotted out. People will declare their wisdom and the congregation will proclaim their praise." And then I think immediately of the St. Al's in our midst. I think of the men and women on the front lines in the titanic battle with COVID-19 in which the whole world is caught up. I think of the doctors, nurses, EMS workers and counsellors. I think of the parents who have put their lives on hold to watch over their children. I think of the people who labor to keep the nation and the world running. And I am rendered speechless. Absolutely speechless. I find myself inspired just thinking about them. And grateful. Speechless, inspired and grateful. All at once.   Of course, I suspect that I am not alone. I suspect that, like me, you too recognize their goodness, their heroism, and their holiness. Indeed, I suspect that, like me, you recognize their saintliness. And, I suspect that, like myself, you are ennobled by seeing and knowing them, and deeply grateful that they have, through their work shown us the holy nobility that comes from service, especially service of the poor and the most vulnerable.   And so, my dear friends, I wonder if you would mind if I asked a favor of you: could you look at their faces of these latter-day St. Al's as their stories are told not in the artistry of stained glass, but on the television news reports that we all watch with rapt attention every day. Look at them intently. As you peer into their eyes, pray for them. Pray for them. And, because this would both please them and affirm the nobility of what they are doing, pray also for those whom they are serving so selflessly during this time of trial. Be assured of my prayers for you and all whom you love as I stand before St. Al's window and contemplate the epitaph frequently used to summarize his life and the call that we have all received: Natus ad Altiora, "Born for Higher Things." For we have all been called to Higher Things. Like noble service.   Prayers and blessings,   Joseph M McShane, S.J.